Teana's Travels Book 18: Puella
by D.K.N
Summary: The Dimensional Defense Force finds another Earth targeted by their foe, only to discover that local young mages are already embroiled in a conflict with new and powerful dark creatures called Witches. Can Teana & company help these girls deal with their eldritch enemies and their own issues while also keeping their world safe from the external threats? M for Violence & Language
1. Rescue

**So, here we have Book 18 of the ****_Teana's Travels_**** series. Having assisted Commander Shepard in destroying the Collector Base, can the young Dimensional Defense Force now save a small group of teenage magical girls from the dire threats and horrifying secrets that await them?**

**THE FOLLOWING THINGS ARE THE PROPERTIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS; I DO NOT OWN THEM AND MAKE NO MONEY OFF OF THIS VENTURE**

_Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha _(Teana, various other characters) – 7Arcs

_Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni _(Shion, the "Keiichi Crew") – 07th Expansion and Studio Deen

_Shuffle! _(Kaede Fuyō, Rin, Asa & Ama, Sia & Nerine, Primula) – Navel and Asread

_Erika's New Perfume _(Marie, Sarah, Erika, Timmy, Veronica) – Deviant-Art artist Lance the Young

_Mai-chan's Daily Life _(Mai, Kizuna) – Waita Uziga

_Star Wars _(Ahsoka, Cody, Rex, _Force Unleashed_ cast) – George Lucas, Lucasfilm

_Halo _(Forerunners, UNSC, Sangheili Alliance) – Bungie and 343 Industries

_StarCraft _(multiple characters, events, and devices) – Blizzard Entertainment

_Naruto _(jutsu, abilities) – Masashi Kishimoto

_Mahō Sensei Negima _(spells, abilities, characters) – Ken Akamatsu

_Kingdom Hearts _(Keyblades, Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed, Aqua, other characters and concepts) – Square-Enix

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_ (Mana Kirishima, other characters) – Studio Gainax

_Elfen Lied _(Kaede K., others) – Lynn Okamoto, Arms

_Red vs. Blue _(The Blood-Gulch Crew, the ex-Freelancers) – Rooster Teeth

_My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic _– Hasbro, Lauren Faust

_Transformers Film Series_ – Hasbro, Michael Bay

_Transformers: Beast Wars _– Hasbro, Mainframe Entertainment

_Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon _– Naoko Takeuchi

_Digimon _– Google and Wikipedia won't tell me who presently owns this franchise

_Yu-Gi-Oh!_ – Kazuki Takahashi, Viz Media

_Sonic the Hedgehog _- SEGA

_Gears of War _– Epic Games

_Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles _– Columbia Tristar (I think)

_Mass Effect _– Bioware

_Metroid_ - Nintendo

**_Puella Magi Madoka Magica _****– Gen Urobuchi, SHAFT**

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-****_BOOK 18 START_****-**

Homura Akemi hung suspended from the ceiling and walls, trying futilely to escape the Ribbon Bind that Mami had placed her in. Mami was being an idiot; the Witch she was going off to fight was _far_ more than it would appear at first glance to be. She was going to get herself brutally killed right in front of Madoka and Sayaka. What's worse, Kyubey might use the opportunity to force Madoka to forge a Contract to survive and defeat the Witch. And then this loop would be another lost cause, just like all the others.

"Damn it…" she grunted through gritted teeth as she tried to wriggle free. "Damn it! Not again!"

"Need some help?"

Homura startled, looking down to see a tall young woman with soft red eyes and long golden-blonde hair in two large pigtails held by black bows looking up at her. The woman was wearing a white cape with black lining over a dark-blue suit with a red belt and a waist-mounted 'cape' that went down to her ankles, with a red-lined dark blue skirt, thigh-high black stockings with a thick red stripe at the top, armored silver metal boots with a gold strap, and a similar silver armor piece on her left wrist and hand. Her right hand held a long-shafted poleaxe with a silver shaft and a metallic-black head with a golden circular gem in the middle. And, to Homura's magical senses, this woman was _bursting_ with magical power – enough to outclass anyone other than Madoka.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"A friend" the woman replied. "My name is Fate Testarossa-Harlaown. This is my magitech A.I. Bardiche."

"Hello" the gem at the center of the woman's weapon flickered as it spoke with a simulated masculine voice.

"You're not a _Puella Magi_" Homura said. "You're too old to be one, and your magic feels different. How can you use magic?"

"I'm not from this world, actually. I'm a member of a multi-dimensional coalition of organizations and uniquely-powered individuals who have united to use our magic and technology to face a great threat that endangers all realms in existence. …I know it sounds hard to believe, but…"

"After everything that's happened in my life, I'll believe anything nowadays. …My name is Homura, surname Akemi. You must get me out of here! An acquaintance of mine has gotten in way over her head against a dark creature she's presently on her way to fight; the creatures are called Witches, and we _Puella Magi _fight them. She's a skilled veteran, but this Witch is different from the others we've fought. She'll get caught off-guard by its unique abilities and probably be killed. There are two noncombatants with her. I have to get in there and kill that thing before it can kill them."

"Right, then. Let's get you out of there. Bardiche, Haken Form."

"Yes, sir."

**-****_SCENE BREAK_****-**

In the bizarre, candy-and-sweets-themed pocket dimension that was the Witch's Domain, Mami Tomoe fired her magic musket at the tiny, plushie-like Witch, the golden 'bullets' of magic impacting and sending it tumbling back. She moved in close, smacking it with the butt of her conjured weapon like a golf club, sending it flying up and into a wall. She then conjured a huge cannon, aiming and firing her _Tiro Finale _attack; the blast of golden energy raced out and exploded upon impact with the little Witch.

When the dust cleared, the Witch was embedded in the wall. Suddenly, its head swelled up a little, and its mouth opened… and out from it came a _huge_ snake-like creature with a black body with red polka-dot spots, and a clown-like face with a big mouth full of shark-like teeth. It raced downward towards Mami, who was frozen in shock and fear. She saw as the beast's mouth opened to devour her…

"_Jaculatio Fulgoris_!"

"Flash Move."

A spear of semi-solidified white Lightning-type magic shot down from above, impaling the Witch through the head and into the ground. Simultaneously, a pink and white blur snatched Mami away, out of the beast's path. Mami's eyes were closed in shock, but she could feel that she was being held/carried by someone.

"It's alright" a young woman's kind and gentle voice said. "You're safe."

Madoka and Sayaka looked on in shock at the sudden turn of events. Mami's savior was a young woman with deep blue eyes and long reddish-brown hair held in two long pigtails by white ribbons. She wore what looked like a white long-sleeved dress with dark-blue lining that ended with a mid-thigh-length skirt, along with a waist-mounted cape, dark-blue armguards over her wrists with black fingerless gloves, thigh-high white stockings that were black at the top, and white armored shoes with a thick gold buckle and blue heel on each. Slung across her back was a white staff with a pale-pink bottom and 'neck', with a large, C-shaped golden head with a big pinkish-red gem in the center. Mami opened her eyes and looked up at her mysterious ally, sensing the very, very large amount of magical power in her.

"W-Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Nanoha – Takamachi Nanoha."

She gently let Mami down onto her feet. Just then, the Witch growled and began to stir, trying to move despite the lightning spear pinning it to the ground. Nanoha drew her Device, readying for a fight, but then a smaller figure blitzed in: a young boy, around 10 or 11 years of age, with dark-red hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a dark-green longcoat with a tight navy-blue shirt and black shorts, with dark-grey boots and elbow-high silk gloves. Slung across his back was a halberd about an inch shorter than him, with an off-white staff and a curved, white blade with a green gem in its base. His fist was glowing with magical energy, pulled back to strike the witch:

"_Ōkahōken_!"

The boy's blow sent the large Witch rolling/tumbling away with considerable force, smashing into the 'wall' of the area. He then pulled free his Device, channeled his magic through it and himself, and conjured & launched several more Lightning Spears that impaled the Witch to the wall in multiple places. It writhed and screeched, going still after a few seconds.

"Nice takedown, Negi-kun" Nanoha said.

"Thanks" he replied.

"A magical _boy_?" Mami murmured.

"Who are you people, anyway?" Sayaka asked.

"They're supposedly members of a multi-dimensional coalition," Homura replied as she and Fate walked into the scene, "which utilizes both magic and technology to defend their realms and any they come across from threats that endanger multiple realms. According to Fate-san here, their enemy has recently chosen to target _our_ world. Pardon me a moment…"

She reached into her forearm-mounted shield's subspace compartment, withdrawing a Dragunov sniper rifle. She kneeled, took aim at something atop the very tall table at the far end of the room, and fired. The bullet ripped through a small, limp, innocent-looking doll seated atop one of the chairs, and in response it exploded with dark magic. The huge Witch-thing pinned to the wall wavered and dissolved, and the inanimate doll she'd shot transformed into a Grief Seed – the core of a Witch.

"That doll up there was the Witch's true body" she told Mami as the Witch's Domain began to dissolve and return everyone to the 'real' realm. "You were fighting a puppet, a proxy. I was trying to warn you of this Witch's capabilities, offer to help you, but instead you left me bound and helpless, ignored me… and, I'm assuming, would have died were it not for these 'Dimensional Defense Force' representatives. All because you refused to listen to my advice and offer of assistance. …How would Madoka and Sayaka have felt if they'd witnessed your gruesome death right before their eyes because of that foolishness of yours?"

Mami staggered back, shock and guilt hitting her as she realized the truth in everything Homura said.

'I… I was just so happy to have Madoka-san promise she'd be with me, that I wouldn't be alone… I let it go to my head… Akemi-san was trying to help me, and I… T-They would've seen me… die…'

Nanoha put a comforting hand on Mami's shoulder, steadying her. Homura retrieved the Grief Seed and then brought it over, and then held her Soul Gem next to Mami's, comparing.

"You need it more than I do right now" she said as she placed the Grief Seed in Mami's hand.

"Why are you helping us all of a sudden?" Sayaka asked, suspicious.

"My primary goal is Madoka's survival, and to prevent her forming a _Puella Magi _Contract. If she forges a Contract with Kyubey, a chain of events will end in her death and a calamity befalling the world. My primary mission is to ensure she remains alive, sane, and un-Contracted… but it would be nice if I could save the rest of you as well, if possible. I'll do whatever I can to try ensuring that, so long as doing so does not put Madoka at risk."

"Who is Kyubey?" Negi asked.

"Long story" Homura replied. "I'll explain later."

"Warning" Raising Heart suddenly announced. "Dimensional fluctuations detected. Energy resonance matches known Darkness-type patterns. Multiple Heartless incoming."

Negi, Fate, and Nanoha readied themselves for battle.

"…Heartless?" Sayaka asked. "As in, 'Kingdom Hearts' Heartless?"

"Yes" Fate replied. "They are one of the types of servants obeying our enemy."

"What's 'Kingdom Hearts'?" Madoka asked.

"A game series I play" Sayaka replied. "I'll tell you about it later."

"A lot of our coalition's member-realms have fictional counterparts in other realms" Nanoha said. "Fate-chan here already knew all about the Heartless from playing those games before we encountered them in real life."

A Midchildan-style Dimension Shift barrier came up, enveloping the group and the surrounding area.

"W-What was that?" Sayaka asked.

"This area's been shifted half a dimension over" Fate replied. "It helps keep mundanes out of danger. Though, considering you and Kaname-chan both got pulled in as well, you must both have sufficient magical potential for the spell to let you in."

A magic teleportation circle appeared, and from it emerged the seven girls of Gamma Team, who immediately prepared for battle.

"Is that…" Madoka said. "Is that Ahsoka Tano?"

"Yep" Negi replied. "Like Nanoha-san said, many of our real members have fictional other-realm counterparts."

It was then that Mami noticed the gravity hammer slung across Sarah's back, the battle-rifle across Ahsoka's, and the DMR now held by Kaede, along with the Dark Templar outfit and green arm-blade that Shion had, and the COG Lancer presently in Sarah's hands.

'No way…' she thought.

Suddenly, Heartless and Unversed began appearing all over the place, in the parking lot the heroes stood in and atop surrounding buildings, all of them looking at the group.

"Holy…" Ahsoka started. "That is a _lot_ of them."

"How come there are so many?" Mai asked.

"Well, think about it" Marie replied as she switched Charon to Light-Beam mode. "Our last visited realm, when we were helping Commander Shepard deal with the Collector issue? During all that time, we didn't encounter a single instance of our other enemies' forces – not even a single Shadow. Maybe this is, like, backlog, for catching up on lost time. Or somethin', I dunno."

"Don't worry" Teana said. "We've got reinforcements coming."

The dark creatures charged en masse. A Crossfire Shot from Teana and a Light-type _Sagitta Magica _from Negi crashed into the approaching horde, cutting down a fair number of them, but the considerable remainder kept coming, with more spawning in to supplement. As the hostiles came in close, Teana, Ahsoka, Shion, and Fate jumped in, their energy blades hacking and slashing through them, while everyone else started shooting/blasting with their own weapons, including Mami with her summoned rifles and Homura with an M16 she pulled from her subspace storage.

Less than a minute after the fight began, as larger Heartless and Unversed showed up and joined the battle, the sound of a revving engine was heard approaching from behind the group. The local group turned to see a silver Corvette Stingray convertible driving toward them… with no driver. As it got close, it transformed into a large bipedal robot, around 20-25 feet tall, with grey and silver plating, wheels for feet, two huge wrist-mounted blades, and glowing blue optics. He retracted his right arm-blade, pulled out a blaster, and started firing, taking out a pair of Stealth Sneaks.

"Sideswipe!" Marie said. "Good of you to join the fray! Anyone else coming?"

"A few, yeah" Sideswipe replied. "A couple of our guys went to pick someone else up on this world and bring 'em here, and the others are on their way, too."

One of Mami Tomoe's most closely-guarded secrets that, despite her elegant, feminine mannerisms most of the time, she had a few 'boyish' interests when it came to video games, films, and TV shows. It was this that let her recognize Ahsoka, recognize the Dark Templar getup the green-haired girl was in, recognize the _Halo_-verse weapons and _GOW_-verse Lancer the other girls carried, recognize what the American with the arm cannon was talking about when she mentioned Commander Shepard and the Collectors. And it was why the present appearance of an Autobot and a Maximal was enough to briefly distract her enough that she failed to notice the quietly-spawned Heartless to her right. She spun around, noticing them and realizing she wouldn't have enough time to react…

Suddenly, several shots rang out from behind her, supersonic bullets zipping past her and nailing each Heartless through the head mid-leap with perfect accuracy. She turned around, and her inner fangirl got a little more of a boost as she quickly recognized the man in dark-purple Mjolnir-esque armor with green highlights, carrying an SRS99 sniper rifle in each hand.

"Hey there, kids" Agent North Dakota said. "Mind if I crash this party?"

"N-No problem" she replied in a weak voice.

Nearby, Marie chuckled as she looked to Mami. "Yeah, I reacted pretty much the same way."

"More so" Sarah said with a grin as she punched a Neoshadow hard enough to kill it. "You squealed like a schoolgirl."

After another minute or so of fighting, another vehicle was heard approaching. From atop a nearby warehouse roof drove a black GMC pickup, which began to transform mid-air as Ironhide readied for battle. He blasted downward, destroying a cluster of Unversed. His two passengers, meanwhile, leapt off as he went airborne; Mami quickly recognized both of them, but the shock of the teal-armored Agent Carolina's presence was eclipsed by that of another girl, young and with long red hair and a spear, who Mami had much more of a past with.

"K… Kyōko-san…?"

Carolina threw her gravity hammer down, and it embedded into the ground and released a shockwave that blasted away a pack of Shadows. She landed right next to it, grabbing it and giving it a reverse-grip swing that bashed away a trio of Scrappers. Meanwhile, Ironhide got into a wrestling match with a recently-spawned Form-2 Iron Imprisoner, quickly depriving the Unversed of its hammer and getting into a slugging match that he was soon winning. Kyōko Sakura landed spear-first atop an Assault Rider near Mami, destroying it, and she then swung her blade-spear out in an arc to decapitate a trio of Bandits.

"Yo, Tomoe" she said. "Crazy shit we've been yanked into, huh?"

Mami could do nothing but nod dumbly. Despite all the weird happenings at present, and the less-than-amicable terms they'd parted on, it was… good to see Kyōko again. Then she shook her head, got herself together, and started blasting Unversed again.

A large dragon-like Heartless with cymbals attached to its many legs – a Storm Rider – flew overhead, starting to drop charges of explosive magic. However, what looked like an SR-71 Blackbird flew in from out of nowhere, slowing down and transforming mid-flight into a tall, black and grey Autobot. With a cry of "Behold the glory of Jetfire!", he brought his axe down on the Storm Rider's neck, slaying the large Heartless and then using his now-back-mounted jets to slow his fall a little, landing feet-first in the center of the fray and starting to use his weapon and a few stomps to pick off the little Darklings around him.

Seconds later, there was a bolt of green lightning from across the battlefield. Another new arrival made her presence known as she punched and kicked and shocked her way through Heartless with ease. She was tall, with brown hair in a high ponytail, wearing a tight white top with a dark-green miniskirt and collar, with a light-pink bow on the chest. Madoka gasped, starry-eyed, as she recognized Sailor Jupiter.

"Hey, where are the twins?" Sideswipe called out to Ironhide, who had just finished trouncing the Iron Imprisoner. "I coulda sworn they said they'd be here."

"They wanted to finish something, they said" the old Autobot replied.

"The twins?" Sayaka asked.

"Skids and Mudflap" Sideswipe said. "They're immature and not the brightest bots around, but they're good shots. One's bright orange, the other's neon green."

Two blaring horns were suddenly heard, and the group looked over to see two vehicles incoming – two Chevrolet Sparks, both of them mostly black but one with some orange bits and the other with green.

"Check it out, yo!" Skids shouted as he and his brother transformed and leapt into the fray. "New threads! _Back in black!_"

"_I hit the sack!_" Mudflap responded.

"_I've been too long, I'm glad to be back!_" the twins chorused as they kept beating down Unversed.

"Aw, Primus…" Sideswipe muttered and face-palmed as the twins kept singing while fighting. Kyōko, in contrast, was laughing and trying to resist the urge to sing along.

Finally, new Heartless and Unversed stopped spawning in, and with the firepower brought to bear against them the remainder didn't last very long after that. As the last few Heartless fell, a spiky-brown-haired boy wearing red-&-black clothing and carrying a Keyblade showed up; Sayaka's eyes went quite wide.

"Aww…" Sora said. "You guys didn't save any for me?"

"Sorry, kid" North chuckled. "Gotta be quicker."

"Well, after Carolina and I found Kyōko and explained stuff to her, I had to deal with that bunch of Type-Gs that were tryin' to cause trouble while they rushed off here."

"Them's the brakes, man" Marie said. "No doubt there'll be more later, so don't worry."

"If you girls like," Fate said to the five-person local group, "we can give you a more detailed explanation of things someplace else. And you can tell us about your type of magic, and about these 'Witch' things you've been fighting."

"There's an old abandoned church toward the edge of the city" Kyōko said. "We can have Exposition Time there."

"Why are you even helping us?" Homura asked the redhead. "Doesn't this go against your philosophy of 'every girl for herself', Sakura-san?"

Kyōko grinned. "Their Keyblades can serve the function of Grief Seeds – they can remove the accumulated darkness from a Soul Gem. Oh sure, it comes back, just like with a Grief Seed, but still, I've technically got no reason to keep having to hunt Witches and steal Seeds from other _Puellae_ if I stick with these folks. Besides, I…" she sighed "I _was_ gettin' a little tired of going solo…"

"You mean you were lonely" Mami said, an understanding smile slowly forming on her face.

Kyōko grumbled and turned away, trying to hide the slight flush to her cheeks.

"Right" Sideswipe said as he transformed. "Everyone who can't fly, teleport, or ninja roofhop, Ironhide, the Twins, and I will give ya a lift."

**-****_SCENE BREAK_****-**

"We are called _Puella Magi_" Mami said to the gathering of DDF people, knowing that the coming words would be recorded for those members of the coalition not present. "We become magical girls by forging a contract with Kyubey" she gestured to the bizarre little white creature seated near her, who nodded. "Our duty is to fight large and powerful creatures of darkness called Witches, as well as their minions, known as Familiars. They target the normal people of the world, and it is our job to stop them. Each Witch manifests their own Domain, a pocket dimension unique to their theme, as well as their own types of Familiars. Also, if a Familiar survives its parent Witch's destruction and feeds on the life force of three humans, it will transform into an exact copy of its parent Witch.

"When a Witch is destroyed, it leaves behind a Grief Seed" she held out what remained of the candy-themed Witch. "These are used primarily to purify our Soul Gems, the source of our power. A Soul Gem slowly becomes corrupted as we use magic, or whenever our negative emotions grow strong. According to Kyubey, if they reach full corruption we'll lose our magic and cease being _Puella Magi_. A Grief Seed can only be used a certain amount of times before it becomes full, so frequent hunting of Witches is required."

"Except the Keyblades that a few of our people have can do the same thing" Carolina said. "So now, all you need to hunt Witches for is to keep them from hurting innocent people."

"And with the recent merging of coalitions," Sarah added, "we've got Sailor Moon now, and she's a master at purification spells, so she could probably do it, too."

"The fact remains that these Witches are a menace" Teana said. "And what's more, our enemy has this world in his sights. All the more reason for us to stick around."

"We've got more people inbound within the next few days" Makoto Kino said. "The rest of my group, the rest of the Autobots, Sigma & Theta Teams, I think Sonic's gonna try to come by…"

"Y… You have Sonic the hedgehog?" Sayaka asked.

"Yep."

"And you mentioned your most recent adventure was helping Commander Shepard stop the Collectors?" Mami asked.

"Yes" Marie replied. "The _Mass Effect _series exists in my world, but due to… extenuating circumstances, I'd only played the first game before I joined the coalition."

"Chisame-san has played both of the two games out so far" Negi said. He looked a little sheepish. "She was, uh… a little pissed you guys didn't talk to her; she says she could've told you everything about the Collectors, the True Geth, the attack on the second _Normandy_, what was on the other side of the Omega-4 Relay…"

"Can she tell us what happens next?" Teana asked.

"No. The third game's not coming out for at least half a year in my world."

"Same here" Marie said.

"And here" Mami said.

"Huh?" Marie asked. "But… it's 2014 here. Where I come from, ME1 came out in 2007, ME2 came out in 2010, and ME3 is due out around six or seven months from now. Same with Negi's world."

"ME2 came out in 2013 in this world," Mami replied, "while ME1 came out in 2011 here. ME3's due out in nine months."

"Hmm…"

"So," Nanoha cut in, "what are you girls' powers?"

"Well," Kyōko said, "for starters, all _Puella Magi _have some physical enhancement magic – strength, speed, agility, durability, reaction time, healing speed."

"I have the ability to conjure magic ribbons for various tasks," Mami said, "as well as magic musket-rifles of varying size and power."

"My fighting revolves around my blade-spear here" Kyōko said. "It can split into segments attached by chains. I used to have the ability to create semi-solid illusory copies of myself, but… shit happened… and now I can't anymore."

"My ability is to temporarily stop time for myself and anyone in physical contact with me" Homura said. "Also, my buckle grants me access to a subspace storage compartment; I mostly use it to carry my various weapons and ammunition."

"Oh, so you can produce magic weapons like Tomoe-san?" Mai asked.

"No" Homura replied, looking a tad ashamed. "I… do not have any offensive magical techniques. My weapons are all purely mundane; I… 'acquired' them from the Yakuza and the Japanese military."

"…Well, that's no good" Teana said. "Tell you what; we could teach you some good Midchildan- or Vetus-system attack spells. And the TSAB's eggheads could probably alter your device to give it more functions, maybe a subspace link to one of the automated ammunition foundries aboard the _Starshot_. And we can give you some weapons from our armories; some of our guns will probably be a bit more potent than the turn-of-the-21st-century stuff you have now." She turned to Kyōko. "You'd probably benefit from some attack spells, too, if that spear is your only present means of offense."

"We'll help you fight these 'Witch' things, too" Sora said.

"And," Negi said, "Miki-san, Kaname-san, you both have magical potential, so maybe we can get you started with some basic spells and work from there."

"But first," Nanoha said, "there's some 'footage' you girls need to see."

"Footage?" Sayaka asked.

"All the events and whatnot involving the Dimensional Defense Force's members, from backstories to more recent happenings. We'll set up a special pocket dimension for you to stay in while watching it; in this pocket realm, you won't need to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom… though snacks will be provided if you want them. Also, though there are days' worth of things to view, only two and a half hours will pass in the outside world."

"We'll go spread the word about what's happening here while you kids are doin' that" Jetfire said.

**-****_SCENE BREAK_****-**

That night, as Homura lay in her bed, her mind raced from everything that had happened today. She remembered all the things she and the other girls had seen in the recorded events – the people, the battles, the powers… She still remembered the shock and empathy she felt when Rika Furude's story was revealed; whereas Homura had only accumulated around five years of looped time, Furude had suffered over _two-hundred_ years of pain and failure. And thanks to the dimensional coalition, she'd gotten her happy ending.

Maybe, this loop would be different, thanks to these mysterious allies. If nothing else, some of their powerhouses could probably take out Walpurgisnacht without Madoka having to forge a _Puella_ Contract. She could only hope…

**-****_CHAPTER END_****-**

Next Time: More allies arrive


	2. Allies

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Next Day – 10:15 AM**

Teana leaned against a tree at the local park, which was deserted except for a handful of DDF personnel (including herself, the rest of Gamma, Negi, and the recently-arrived Theta Team) and the five local girls (well, and that odd little Familiar-esque magic empowerer called Kyubey). Last night after the 'footage' viewing, as well as so far this morning, they'd been doing their best to get to know these girls, and the DDF group already had a grasp of what they were like.

Madoka Kaname was idealistic, cheerful, and a tad naïve. She had a strong, kind heart and a desire to help people and make friends. She had some self-esteem issues, though, feeling herself worthless and lacking in any significant accomplishments, and she wanted to become a _Puella Magi _mainly to give herself a purpose. But according to Akemi, Madoka forming a Contract would trigger a chain of events ending in some sort of city-flattening calamity; the enigmatic girl refused to elaborate further, stating "you'd never believe me; no-one else ever has". Sayaka Miki was a brave-hearted girl with a strong sense of justice. Like Madoka, she wanted to make a difference. She also had further motivations in the form of love for a boy hospitalized by injury.

Thankfully, though, witnessing how close Mami Tomoe came to death had been enough of a shock to awaken Madoka and Sayaka to the fact that being a magical girl fighting creatures of darkness wasn't all sunshine, roses, frilly pink outfits, and calling your attacks. Hopefully the danger involved would convince them to wait until they got proper training before leaping into the fray.

Mami Tomoe was an experienced _Puella Magi_. She was elegant and graceful, methodical yet flashy in her fighting. There were two parts of herself, however, that she had worked hard to remain hidden. The first was her loneliness; she had been orphaned in a car crash, and Kyubey had convinced her, on the brink of death, to forge a Contract, her wish (that was another interesting thing about the _Puella_ system: a Contract's forging came with a single wish) being to survive. She was quite well off, dwelling in a fancy apartment, living off her wealthy parents' inherited fortune and her surprising skill (especially for a 14-year-old) at playing the stock market. However, she lived alone, and as a magical girl she'd been fighting alone for quite some time. As a result, she had deep issues with loneliness and abandonment; one reason she'd been reckless against the last Witch was because Madoka's promise to be by her side left her so genuinely happy and giddy that she got sloppy, distracted by her own powerful emotions. She'd gotten a hold of herself fully now, though, and the DDF's providing of new combat partners would ensure something like that wouldn't happen again.

The second side of Mami that she wanted to keep hidden was her "uncouth, boyish" side, as she called it – her love of action flicks, shooters and other stereotypically-male-oriented games, and, when alone at her home, relaxing with her hair down, munching on snacks, while wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties (sometimes just the panties). For someone with such an elegant, delicately feminine image, this side of herself was definitely not something she wanted becoming known to the world.

Kyōko Sakura was an interesting case. She was a very selfish girl, but a little pressing had revealed why she only looked out for herself: she believed that any attempt made by someone to help other people, especially with magic, would only end up going horribly wrong and causing nothing but pain and suffering for all involved. Privately, Mami had then explained Kyōko's heart-breaking past, which cast the belligerent redhead in a whole new light; she was a tragic victim of unforeseeable circumstance, lashing out at the cruel world by retaliating with her own cruelty. Nanoha and Negi were hoping that they and the others could show Kyōko-chan that life didn't have to be that way, that she had just been unlucky, and that she _could _help others and let herself have friends again and have everything turn out all right. Mami had, of course, agreed to help them with this monumental task.

Homura Akemi was very difficult to read. She was stoic and quiet, speaking rather tersely most of the time and doing her best to appear coldly neutral. However, some of the more experienced DDF members, looking at her body language & eyes and hearing her voice, could tell she was much deeper. Homura was in a constant struggle to control, rein in, and suppress her emotions, and deep down inside she was suffering from a very, very large amount of heartbreak and pain. She was keeping her emotions locked away for fear of her accumulated sorrows bursting out and consuming her. It would likely be _very_ difficult to get her to gradually open up, release her feelings, and allow herself to feel and to truly interact with the others, while avoiding letting her dark emotions out took quickly; if she was anything like Fate, it could take a handful of years of constant work for the process to complete. But any challenge existed to be overcome.

Right now, they were gathered at the park for some field-testing and a little training. First off was identifying the girls' primary elemental affinities. That had been quick & easy enough – Mami's affinity was Earth, Kyōko's was Lightning, Madoka's was Wind, Sayaka's was Water, and Homura's was Fire. Next would be teaching Madoka and Sayaka how to access their magical power, and teach them a few basic Vetus-system spells, while also teaching the ever-versatile _Sagitta Magica _to the other three. Homura would also get some practice with some of her multitude of new weapons, while Negi helped Kyōko hone her polearm skills (Fate would help her as well once she was done with attending to a task later this evening).

Suddenly, about 20 minutes into the park meeting, magical energy flared as a long-distance transportation circle formed toward the middle of the secluded field, large and glowing with magenta light. The glow peaked in a brilliant flash of light, forcing everyone present to shield their eyes. After a few seconds, voices could be heard.

"Are ya okay, Twi? Y' look a bit out of it, hun."

"I'll be fine. I'm just… whew… a bit tired from performing such a complex spell. …Did I do it right?"

As the group opened their eyes, shock gave way to recognition. Teana grinned. "Twilight! AJ! And the whole rest of the gang, too! What are you guys doing here?"

Standing where the magic circle had been was a group of familiar Equestria natives: the six bearers of the Harmony Elements – Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie – along with Spike, Trixie (who was still Mark-less), Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, Golden Tiara, and the Crusaders, along with three other foals that Gamma Team didn't recognize.

"Wow, you girls brought everyone along, huh?" Shion said.

"Not quite" Dash replied. "Celestia & Luna couldn't come on account of having to keep Equestria spinning. And we got a few more coming in a day or two. We're just the first group."

"We've seen all the 'footage' from the other coalition and from the Collector Incident," Twilight said, "and we want to help with whatever's going on now."

"Are you… sure bringing the Crusaders along for this was wise?" Mai asked.

"Y'all are implyin' we coulda stopped them" Applejack said in a deadpan tone.

"Ah, yes. Silly me."

"So…" Timmy said as he and the other Theta Team members walked up. "Who are the three new kids?"

The trio of new foals in question were an earth-pony colt with brown fur and two-toned orange mane & tail with gold eyes, a unicorn filly with pale purple coat and blond mane & tail with golden eyes, and a pegasus foal with light grey coat, two-toned dark grey mane & tail with purple eyes, and at first looked to be a filly but was quickly identified as a feminine-looking colt.

"I'm Button!" the earth pony said.

"I'm Dinky!" the unicorn said.

"And I'm Rumble!" the pegasus said.

All Three: "We're the three new members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!"

They and the original trio struck a _Sentai_-esque pose together. A few of the observers giggled.

"So…" Sayaka started.

"Cute…" Madoka finished.

"So, then…" Rainbow Dash said. "What's happenin' this time?"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Same Day – 2:40 PM**

Explanations had been given and training had commenced. The five locals were presently taking a break with their new instructors, while also mingling with the recent arrivals. Mami and Rarity had hit it off splendidly, Golden Tiara was calmly conversing with Homura while trying to slowly and carefully get the girl to open up a little, Sayaka was listening to some of Shining Armor's stories from the years he'd been in the Royal Guard, Kyōko was having her attempt to segregate herself from the group gently but insistently foiled by Cadence (she'd babysat Kyōko's type before, so she knew just how to handle the girl), and Madoka was hanging with Pinkie and the kids.

"So how's your recovery going, Trixie?" Teana asked.

"Well enough" the unicorn replied. "I still… can't use magic, and my Mark is still gone, seeing as my previous 'Special Talent' wasn't really something I was special with at all…" she grew melancholy, her self-esteem issues grabbing hold again. Teana laid a hand on her back. "But my chakra training is progressing nicely, I've been told. Kakashi left me some scrolls that have been really helpful. I can already convert my chakra into Lightning energy."

"That's good" Teana praised her. "See? You're making progress."

"Yeah… I just don't know if it'll ever be enough…"

Suddenly, a holoscreen popped up, flashing an alert.

"Warning" a computerized voice announced. "Unversed and Malevolent extra-planar entities detected."

"Already?" Teana said. "Alright, people, you heard it! Fun-time's over! Anyone below C-Rank combat skills, stay on the sidelines; everyone else, get ready to move!"

Of course, that only included Madoka, Sayaka, and the six Crusaders. Everyone else readied themselves to fight.

"Vision, where are they coming in?" Teana asked the _Starshot_'s VI.

"Two locations, Lieutenant Lanstar" the Forerunner-made artificial semi-intelligence replied. "The warehouse district and the park near city hospital. Dimensional-shift barriers are being erected in both areas to remove mundanes from danger."

"Alright, we'll split into three groups – one will head to each danger zone, while a smaller third one will stay here and watch Kaname, Miki, and the Crusaders in case the enemy tries sending someone after them while we're out fighting."

"Alert" Vision said. "Dimensional transference spell detected. IFF tags confirm Dimensional Defense Force memberships. Allies incoming."

A blue magic circle formed, and from it emerged Samus and the members of Sigma Team.

"Good timing, girls" Teana said to them.

"What's happening that makes this good timing?" Aqua asked.

"Demon & Unversed attack; two locations. I'll explain everything else about what we're facing here afterwards. Aqua, you and I should pick teams to lead to each location; we also need to leave a few behind to watch the noncombatants."

"Got it."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Park Near Mitakihara City Hospital**

The team led by Aqua and Samus hurried onto the scene; other than them, it was composed of Kaede F., Marie, Mana K., Erika, Erio, Golden Tiara, Rainbow Dash, Homura, and Mami. Teana and Negi were leading another team (composed of Marie, Ahsoka, Subaru, Asa, Timmy, Caro, Twilight, Trixie, and Kyōko) to handle the warehouse sector, while the rest stayed to guard the noncombatants at the other park. The hospital was across the street from this park, slightly grayed out and empty thanks to the dimension-shift barrier.

As soon as they arrived, the enemy appeared and began attacking – 'Demons' and Unversed came crawling out of the woodwork from every direction, and soon the entire team was fighting. Homura, for one, was quickly coming to like the fresh-off-the-assembly-line UNSC BR85 scoped rifle that made up part of her vast new armory of DDF weapons; Kaede, meanwhile, was impressed at how good a shot the girl was (though the UNSC did make their guns to be very easy to pick up and use). Meanwhile, a pulse of green-hued Biotic power from Golden Tiara sent a pack of Floods flying, and she then threw out a Shockwave-Chain that tossed several Scrappers every which way. Marie and Mami were firing bolts of purple and yellow magic at anything they got in their sights, while Erika and Aqua were using their Keyblades to carve through Demons and Unversed with practiced ease.

Over the next few minutes they fought, but the number of spawning-in enemies kept increasing, as did the size, power, and durability of some of the hostiles. Slowly the team was pushed back, forming a defensive circle that was very slowly shrinking as they pressed closer together, being attacked from all sides. Then a bigger surprise made itself known: a 'Behemoth' Heartless with two massive guns strapped to its back, mixed in with the Unversed and Demons.

"Slipspace rupture detected" Charon announced. "Cannot identify or locate vessel; emissions are being suppressed."

"Great, so did the Dark Voice send a ship after us, too, or something?" Rainbow Dash said.

"This is Lt. Aran to any Dimensional Defense Force personnel in range" Samus radioed. "We are being pressed in hard from all sides and are in danger of being overrun. Requesting assistance!"

And then a voice came over the comm. that made Mami's eyes widen with amazed recognition.

"_We hear ya, Lt. Aran! Don't worry, folks; cavalry's here!_"

The voice of Lt. Jeff "Joker" Moreau.

A barrage of missiles flew in, detonating amongst the enemy horde and blowing huge chunks out of their numbers. Seconds later, the unmistakable 170-meter form of the _Normandy II _flew in overhead, hovering low over the battlefield. UNSC-made point-defense guns opened up, cutting down swathes of enemy troops, while the vessel fired a barrage from its disruptor torpedo launchers at the approaching Behemoth, obliterating it with only a handful of direct hits and also wiping out more of the Unversed and Demons. The _N2_'s ventral cargo hatch opened as it lowered to around 15 feet off the ground, and a blur of glowing blue energy shot out like a cannonball, Commander Jason Shepard's Biotic Charge terminating in the midst of a pack of Type-Gs and -Es and sending them flying.

The rest of Team Shepard quickly leapt down from the hatch and onto the battlefield, opening fire on the now-off-balance horde of Dark creatures. A Type-F that tried to swoop in on Mami got its brain blown out by a Mantis shot from Garrus, while a trio of Floods trying to ambush Homura from behind got zapped by Legion's Combat Drone. Jack and Grunt charged in, using Biotic power and raw Krogan strength to bulldoze anything in their paths, while Zaeed, Kal'Reegar, and Jacob used their assault rifles to cut down a pack of Scrappers that tried to charge them. With the influx of firepower and the _Normandy_'s guns, the tables had been thoroughly turned.

"What are you guys doing here?" Marie said.

Shepard grinned. "We were in the neighborhood," he replied, "thought you might need a hand."

"The _Normandy 2 _looks good as new."

"The Huragok do good work. They even helped us get rid of all the Cerberus logos that were all over the ship. And, as you can see, they got the slipspace drive installed and working in record time."

"_Shepard,_" EDI radioed, "_there is a problem. Life-signs detected at the nearby hospital; someone had enough latent potential to be pulled in by the dimension-shift barrier. Furthermore, hostiles are moving in on them. It is highly unlikely they are combat-trained, or even aware of their latent ability or what is going on._"

"I'll take a team and rescue them" Shepard replied. "…Kaede, Tali, Thane, you three are coming with me. The rest of you, mop up the stragglers and then head out to help the other group at the warehouse district."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Kyōsuke Kamijō was having a very weird day. First he had that odd dream involving cake and pirates led by Captain Hook. Then that new nurse confused him for a girl (well, it was sorta understandable – he was slight in build with somewhat feminine facial features, he hadn't cut his hair in a while, and puberty hadn't hit his voice yet – but it still irked him a little bit). And now he'd been out for an assisted 'walk' in the hospital plaza with his doctor and his parents when suddenly a wave of energy/reality/whatever had swept over the entire area, leaving the quartet in a grayed out version of the hospital, with no-one else around. And not too long after, gunfire had been heard in the park across the way, on the other side of the main building from the plaza (so they couldn't see what was going on).

And now they were being stared down by a fairly large group of dark, shadowy demon-things.

The pack of Neoshadows slowly approached them, as Kyōsuke's father bravely placed himself between the Heartless and his wife, son, & son's doctor. The lead Neoshadow broke forward, rushing at them… and suddenly a sniper's bullet tore through its head, destroying it. DMR shots picked off three more, and two colorful energy spheres – an Incinerate and a Warp – came flying in and destroyed two more. The four civilians watched in amazement as the rescuing quartet entered the scene, Shepard leading the charge. Thane Biotically lifted three Neoshadows into the air, allowing Tali to use her shotgun to blast them at her leisure. Shepard took out the last two with his Predator pistol. With that done, Squad Shepard walked up to the astonished civilians.

"What… is going… on?" the doctor stammered out, trying to keep her jaw from dropping.

"Well…" Shepard awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "It's a very long story, and I'm not sure any of you would believe me."

Kyōsuke looked around at the dissipating remains of the last Neoshadow, and then around at the grayed-out empty locale, and then at Thane & Tali, and then back to Shepard. "Try us" he replied.

"You ever heard of the theory of alternate universes or realms?" Kaede said. "The theory's wholly correct. We're part of a multi-dimensional alliance/coalition of multiple sovereign entities and individuals of unique ability, working together to combat mutual threats. Those creatures were foot-soldiers in service to our current primary foe. We use a multitude of resources, technological and magical, to safeguard the realms."

"Magical?" the boy's mother asked.

"Well… yeah. But we've long since figured out the scientific theories and bases behind magical energy, to the point where we can detect and even – to a limited extent – generate it via pure technology. For us, it's pretty much just another fundamental force of existence, like gravity and the strong & weak nuclear forces, and such. It's just called magic because it was dubbed that a long time before we figured out the science behind it, so the name stuck. Same with chakra, or '_ki_' as some know it; we can explain it scientifically, even though it can still do quite a few mystical things."

"Though using such forces to literally resurrect the dead, like I know has been done, is still something I don't think can be explained scientifically" Tali chimed in.

"Well, we don't know _everything_ about magic or chakra yet. That'll take decades or even centuries more study. Besides, that at least partially relies upon detailed knowledge of the mechanics behind souls and such, and that field of study is still in its infancy; we've figured out for certain that souls exist, but that's pretty much all we know."

"Oh, and…" Shepard said to the four civvies, "there are instances of some realms' events having fictional counterparts in other realms; I'm pretty sure I saw a star-struck look in the eyes of one of this world's local 'magical girls', so… try to keep this whole thing on the down-low for a while, please."

"There are magical girls _in this world_?" Kyōsuke asked, eyes going wide.

"Yes" Kaede replied. "We've met three in this city, as well as two potential candidates. It's a rougher life than _Sailor Moon_ or _Pretty Cure_ would make you think, though; all three have some fairly troublesome psychological issues as a result of their experiences fighting eldritch monsters by themselves with little in the way of partnership and no living family for support – one's cripplingly lonely and hides behind a fake smile, one is selfish and crude because her last attempt at selflessness resulted in her family's deaths, and one is stone-cold stoic because, from what one of our empaths can tell, she's suffered so much pain and loss in her life that her negative emotions she's constantly suppressing could consume her if she let them out. So yeah, it's not all sunshine, roses, pink frills, and heart-shaped energy blasts."

"Our coalition does have quite a few psychologists trained to deal with special-powered individuals with issues like theirs, however" Thane said. "We'll have to see if it's enough."

"Could you explain this odd empty grayness we're in?" the boy's father asked.

"We can erect barriers that shift everyone half a dimension over unless they have sufficient magical strength or are recognized by the barrier as being members of the Dimensional Defense Force" Kaede replied. "However, once in a while someone with sufficient untapped magical potential will be pulled in even if they don't know they have magical potential, or even that such a thing exists." She brought up her Omnitool and scanned the group. "Oh, yeah; definitely the boy. You've got a pretty robust Mana Core."

"I have… magical potential…?" Kyōsuke murmured.

"So how'd _we_ get pulled in?" the doctor asked.

"Were you in direct physical contact with him when the barrier went up?"

"…Oh. Yes."

"There you go."

"_Shepard,_" EDI radioed, "_there are still more Heartless in the hospital area. Fortunately, the group of people you have found were the only hospital residents pulled in; you will not need to rescue anyone else, simply clear the dark entities out._"

"Alright. Thanks, EDI. Tali, you're with me. Thane, Kaede, watch over these people in case more of those things try to attack them again."

"Yes, Commander" "Of course, Shepard"

As Shepard and Tali ran off into the dimension-shifted hospital to go Heartless Hunting, Kaede and the doctor helped Kyōsuke limp over to a bench. As everyone got settled, Thane was struck by a brief coughing fit. He composed himself quickly enough, but the doctor was now eyeing him.

"Even in a different species," she said, "I can recognize a few troublesome sounds in that. Do you have asthma or pneumonia, or emphysema?"

"No" Thane replied. "My illness is species-exclusive, and is not transmittable to others. …However, it is terminal."

This caught the four locals' attention.

"What exactly is the problem?" the doctor asked.

"My species, the Drell, are native to Rakhana, a very arid planet. Eventually, we over-exploited the world to the point of ecological collapse. Wars broke out over food and water, and our population plummeted from combat and famine. Our world was dying, and so was our species. We were discovered by the Hanar, another race, who transplanted several thousand of us offworld just as the full force of the collapse hit. As the rest of our brethren continued to kill each other while Rakhana died, we were saved. But… there was a price.

"The Hanar are an aquatic race. Their homeworld, Kahje, is almost entirely covered in ocean, and it rains every day. For a species that had only ever known arid desert, it was too drastic a change. Our lungs can't handle the excess moisture. The disease is known as Kepral's Syndrome, after the first Drell to be officially diagnosed with it. It interferes with our lungs' ability to absorb oxygen. At advanced stages, which I have yet to reach, it also interferes with our blood cells' ability to carry oxygen, in addition to continued damage to the lungs. Eventually, we die of hypoxia.

"There is no cure. In exchange for our survival as a species, the Drell are doomed as individuals to early death. The best Hanar and Salarian geneticists are working on a species-wide genetic modification program to save us, but it will take years before the project bears fruit. I only have around eight months left – slightly more if I restrict myself to dry, arid environments, and slightly less if I am frequently exposed to higher-humidity climates."

The listeners were silent as they processed this. What could they say, really? Any ruminations, however, were cut off as a good-sized pack of Shadows and Neoshadows suddenly spawned in around a dozen meters away. Thane and Kaede immediately took ready stances, Kaede pulling out a pre-prepared Humerus Sword from a storage scroll (partly because she didn't wanna freak out the spectators by forming a fresh one) while Thane drew his M5 Phalanx pistol. The duo ran in, Kaede using her blade to stab and slice through Heartless while Thane picked more off with his pistol.

The spectators watched attentively as the two warriors carved through the shadowy beings; Kyōsuke had stood up to get a better view. None of them noticed as the single Neoshadow emerged from the ground behind and to the left of the boy. Suddenly, Kyōsuku's latent potential 'kicked in' enough for him to sense the dark energy signature right behind him. Startled, he turned his head and saw the Heartless that was way too close. It lashed out with a claw, and Kyōsuke threw himself to the right; this saved him from a potentially mortal wound, but the claw raked across his damaged left hand, ripping across the bandages and the flesh. He cried out as his momentum carried him down to the ground. The other three startled and turned to look, now noticing the Heartless amongst them.

The Neoshadow hissed and went for the boy again, but this time a kick to the face from Kyōsuke's father interrupted it. The man then grabbed one of his son's metal crutches and swung, knocking the Heartless to the ground. He brought it down in an axe-blow on the shadowy being's head, and the Neoshadow was destroyed in a burst of Darkness particles. Kaede and Thane quickly noticed the commotion and ran over. Kaede approached Kyōsuke, hand glowing with healing chakra, but a Shadow leapt onto her back, forcing her to wrestle it off.

"Damn it! I'm sorry; these things aren't going to give me the chance to heal you!"

She pulled out her M398 DMR and started shooting the Heartless as they charged. Thane tossed out a Biotic Throw that destroyed two and stunned a third, which he then finished off with his pistol. The dark creatures were soon whittled down. However, a new threat entered the scene, leaping down from the roof and landing atop the last Shadow, destroying it: a Dark Thorn. The large Pureblood Heartless roared, the spiked chains wrapped around its arms jangling as it pounded its fists together. It rushed at them, leaping high and preparing to slam them with its claws…

…When a blur of pink and green 'flew' in with a war-cry, her midair punch sending the Dark Thorn flying with considerable force to smash into a distant wall, being destroyed on impact. The group's rescuer landed, revealing herself to be a teen girl with pale-pink hair wearing a dark-green Konoha vest over a red outfit, her green eyes topped by a diamond-shaped seal in the middle of her forehead.

"Sakura-san!" Kaede said with a smile.

"Hey, Kaede-san" Sakura Haruno replied. "Looks like I had good timing."

"You could say that" Thane said with a small grin. "That was certainly an impressive entrance."

"I've had a lot of practice with that. …Who are these four?"

"Pull-ins from when the dimension-shift barrier was put up" Kaede said. "One of them got slashed by a Heartless."

Sakura walked over, wincing a bit when she saw Kyōsuke's bloody hand. "Let me take care of that" she said.

Once the boy was helped back onto the bench and the shredded bandages were removed, Sakura kneeled in front of him, her hands glowing green with healing chakra as she held them over his left hand. The bleeding stopped, and the torn flesh began to slowly mend. After a handful of seconds, her eyes widened just a bit.

"There's a lot more damage here than just from the Heartless' claws" she said. "Hmm… Well, while I'm here…"

"Is…" the boy's mother said. "Is she really…?"

"Haruno Sakura is one of our best healers" Kaede said. "The only ones who are for sure better are her teacher, Senju Tsunade, and a mage named Konoe Konoka."

"Tsunade-sama says I'll probably be as good as her in less than a decade" Sakura said as she focused on repairing nerve damage. "And Konoe-san's healing has limits; her magical Artifact can heal any injuries, so long as there's still a spark of life in the person, but only within three minutes of the injury being sustained. When it comes to healing older wounds like I'm doing, she's 'only' around the skill level of Tsunade-sama's assistant, Shizune-sempai… who is a cut above the rest, to be sure."

As Sakura continued her work, Shepard and Tali returned. They looked over at the damaged wall where the Dark Thorn had crashed into, and then at Sakura's presence healing Kyōsuke's arm.

"What'd we miss?" Shepard said.

"Nothing much" Kaede replied.

Sakura had by now repaired enough damage that Kyōsuke could feel and move his fingers again, though she was not yet done. While the medic-nin continued working, the boy's father noticed that the shotgun Tali was carrying was fairly large and bulky, especially being held by her small, slight frame.

"I'm guessing that suit comes with strength-enhancement functions?" he said.

"A little," Tali replied, "but not as much as some people thing. We Quarians are actually pretty strong."

"Quarians' muscles are pretty dense compared to most species'," Shepard said, "and as a result they're surprisingly stronger than their appearances would suggest. On top of that, their bones are dense and very resistant to fracture, and when their muscles or bones _are_ damaged they heal very quickly. Top that all off with a rather strong cultural tradition of keeping in peak physical condition, and they're one of the stronger and hardier species in the galaxy – only Krogans and Yahg can routinely outmuscle Quarians, and for the former it's not that easy."

"Now if only our immune systems had that same durability" Tali grumbled.

"What's wrong with your people's immune systems?" the doctor asked.

"First off, we evolved on a planet with little in the way of harmful microbes, and the only native arthropods dwell in the deep oceans; Rannoch has no insect or arachnid analogues. In fact, a lot of Rannoch's native microbial life is at least partially symbiotic, so our immune systems evolved to co-opt them instead of fighting them. That led to… issues once we started colonizing other worlds. Our immune systems were fairly adaptable, though, so it hardly ever caused trouble.

"Then…" she sighed. "Then the exodus happened. We lost our homeworld because of our own short-sighted aggression. In the 300 years since, we've been forced to live on a fleet of thousands of starships. All that time aboard the ships has severely compromised our immune systems and wrecked their adaptability. So now, we have to wear these suits. An open-air exposure or – ancestors forbid – an open wound can very quickly lead to a fatal infection. To top it all off, our proteins are based on dextro-amino acids, rather the levo-amino acids found in humans and most other races; only the Turians are dextros like us. So we have to be extra careful in what we eat and what we are exposed to, or else we could suffer from lethal anaphylactic shock."

"Wow… That sounds awful" Kyōsuke's mother said.

"It could be worse; we could be in the same situation as the Volus. Rannoch has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere with pressure similar to Earth's. The Volus come from a world with a methane-ammonia atmosphere with very high pressure. They have to wear big, bulky atmospheric pressure suits whenever they're offworld, or else not only will they suffocate, they'll split open."

A few of the listeners grimaced at the mental image.

"Whew…" Sakura leaned back, the glow around her hands dissipating. "That should do it. There'll be a little surface scarring, and some stiffness from not being used for a while, but I managed to repair the neural and muscular damage. You might not wanna do anything strenuous with it for a day or two, just in case."

Kyōsuke started in awe at his healed hand, seeing and feeling the fingers as he wiggled them. The rest of his body still felt like crap, but his hand was good as new. His dream was again in reach.

"_Shepard, all hostiles have been eliminated. The barrier will be dispelled soon. I recommend you exit with haste before you are exposed to the mundane population._"

"Sounds like that's our cue to leave" Shepard said to the local quartet. "Please keep this whole situation quiet as much as you can. Also, since you're already sorta-involved, I guess it wouldn't hurt to give you this". He pulled out a small oblong device, around the size of a fist. "This contains a wealth of audio-visual data on our coalition's backstories and adventures, all the way up to the end of the Collector campaign in my 'verse. It'll also project a small dimension-shift barrier for you to all watch it in while altering the flow of time in it, so only two and a half hours will pass in the outside world. You won't need to eat or sleep or use the bathroom while you're in it. It should help you understand a lot more about what you got caught up in. Again, though, keep it secret from the rest of the world; there's too much of a risk for chaos if this got out."

The boy nodded shakily as he accepted the device with his hands – _both_ his hands. Shepard nodded, and then he & the four others left. A few minutes later, the dimension-shift barrier dispelled, returning Kyōsuke and his parents & doctor to the 'normal' realm.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Tsunade Senju strolled through the halls of the _Starshot_, having taken a break from her post-war duties as Hokage to tackle a rather ambitious task she'd set down for herself. She'd spent a while reading up behind the specifics of this disease, and of the physiology of the species suffering from it. She knew she could never hope to individually cure every one of the millions of sufferers, but if she could do it for this one particular individual, who was part of something much greater than most of his people could ever dream…

She walked into the portside lounge of the Forerunner destroyer, where the _Normandy _team was taking a little R&R. "Mr. Krios?" she said. "Could I speak with you for a moment, please?"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

"Are you certain that this is your choice?" Kyubey asked.

"…Yes" Sayaka replied. "Kyōsuke got hurt because he was dragged into this mess, however slightly. Haruno-san gave him his dream back, but… I want to be strong enough to protect him."

"Very well" Kyubey said as its body surged with power. "Miki Sayaka, prepare to enter the world of the _Puella Magi_."

As she felt new, raw power flowing through her, Sayaka closed her eyes and focused on the mental image of the smile of the boy she loved.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: More help arrives, and a foe thought dead makes a surprise appearance.


	3. Gathering

Note: If any _Naruto _characters who are alive in this fic series end up dying later in manga canon, just consider this fic series' timeline's _Naruto _verse to be an even-more-alternate timeline from the canon/original one than it already is.

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Next Day – 12:45 PM**

It was quite the hot topic: Tsunade was attempting to cure Thane of his Kepral's Syndrome… and was _succeeding_. Granted, she couldn't do it all at once, having to perform multiple treatments over a few-days period, but the fact remained that a member of Team Shepard would soon no longer have the specter of death hanging over his head. They were still trying to figure out exactly how to break the good news to Kolyat.

Another development of note was Sayaka forging a contract with Kyubey and becoming a _Puella Magi_. Homura seemed… wary, though she declined to mention why. An interesting development was that forging the Contract gave Sayaka instinctive knowledge on how to access her magical energy, though a lack of knowledge of any actual spells meant she couldn't really do anything with it. This was being rectified, as several techniques were already being selected to be taught to her. As her weapons were summoned/conjured swords, she would need proper swordsmanship training as well, but there was no shortage of people capable of giving her that, either.

The Equestria and Normandy crews were already mingled in and ready to help, and more reinforcements were said to be incoming within the new few days. After getting over her fangirlish star-struckness, Mami was getting along quite well with Garrus, who was helping the girl hone her sharpshooting skills and also helping her design sniper, shotgun, and pistol variants of her magically-conjured guns. Sayaka was spending time around Samara, who found the girl's commitment to justice endearing and was teaching her a few basic moves that might come in handy. Homura, surprisingly, spent a fairly large amount of time conversing with Legion, the two (or 1,184, depending on how you look at it) forming a bond of sorts; a few jokes had been made on Homura seemingly being even less emotive than the Geth. Kyōko, unsurprisingly, got along great with Jack and Grunt, but she actually seemed to be hanging out the most with Agent Carolina, who in turn had taken a shine to the kid.

Right now, though, there was a more immediate concern: a Witch had been detected. Samus, Garrus, Mami, and Homura headed out together to hunt it down and eliminate it. They came across the entrance to the Witch's Domain near an electrical power plant, and entered the pocket dimension. As they entered into a twisted mockery of a factory of sorts, they found that everything had an almost-undetectable bluish tinge to it, and the air felt charged.

"Warning" Samus' suit's VI stated. "Phazon detected. Radiation shielding activated."

"There's Phazon in this pocket realm?" Samus asked her suit.

"Affirmative."

"That's… not good" Mami said.

(MUSIC: _Metroid Prime _– "Phazon Mines")

Garrus donned his helmet and checked to ensure his armor was now in airtight radiation-proof mode, while Homura and Mami shimmered briefly as they activated the hazardous environment shielding magic the TSAB had recently installed into their 'magical girl outfits' (which were functionally analogous to Barrier Jackets, and thus compatible with TSAB tech). The quartet advanced cautiously, weapons readied (Homura was presently carrying a Sangheili Type-25 Plasma Rifle).

"If this substance is native to your universe, Lieutenant," Garrus said, "how in the worlds did it get here?"

"I've got no idea" Samus replied. "Maybe it was just a fluke – you know, a 'hiccup' in space-time."

A little ways in, a small pack of Witch's Familiars emerged, their bodies twisted and mutated, parts of them glowing electric-blue with Phazon corruption. They rushed at the team, only for Samus' Power Beam and Homura's plasma rifle to quickly destroy them. The team kept moving deeper into the factory-like Domain, fighting through a few more small groups of Phazon-corrupted Familiars. They eventually reached the Domain's equivalent of a central manufacturing chamber; conveyer belts ran in multiple directions through space, twisting and turning in on themselves and emerging from nowhere. A few masses of raw Phazon grew in patches on the walls and ceiling.

Corrupted Familiars began emerging from their hiding places. Mami conjured several magic-muskets, Garrus slapped a fresh thermal clip into his Avenger, Homura pulled a second plasma rifle out of her subspace storage, and Samus switched her cannon to Dark Beam mode. The Phazon-twisted magical constructs charged, and the team opened fire. Homura's plasma rifles gunned down a pack of them, Samus' Dark Beam shots killed each Familiar in one or two shots, Mami's magic muskets had enough force against the fragile enemies that occasionally a shot over-penetrated and killed a second Familiar, and Garrus' assault rifle and a few Overloads mopped up the rest.

After about 40 seconds of this, the flow of Familiars ebbed. Suddenly, there was a warped, flanging roar from up above. Out of nowhere, a large creature dropped down into the area. It was around 30 feet in size with a vaguely humanoid body structure, its already-unnatural form twisted and mutated further by heavy Phazon exposure, glowing blue 'veins' of the substance running across its body. Its claws were tipped with red Phazon crystals, and a large jaw full of sharp Phazon-crystal teeth sat beneath glowing blue eyes.

(BOSS MUSIC: _Metroid Prime 3 Corruption _– "Helios")

"Damn!" Garrus shouted. "_That's_ a Witch?"

"Worse" Mami replied. "It's a Phazon-corrupted Witch!"

"If this thing gets loose," Samus said, "it could corrupt the entire planet. We need to kill it ASAP!"

"I suspect that may prove more difficult to do than to say" Homura said.

The Corrupted Witch lunged at the team, who scattered to avoid being crushed by its claws. Samus fired a charged Dark Beam shot that hit the beast in the face, the Darkness matter (not to be confused with what scientists called 'dark matter') adhering to its face and temporarily blinding it. Homura had stored her plasma rifles and pulled out an M22 'Eviscerator' shotgun, firing a few blasts at the creature's head. The Corrupted Witch managed to shake off the effects of the Entangler blast off its face, and it snarled in pain and anger as liquid Phazon flowed in place of blood from where Homura blasted the side of its head. It swung a claw at her, and she barely dodged, her magi-shields briefly flaring from the proximity to the radioactive creature.

Two shots from Garrus' M92 Mantis struck the Corrupted Witch in the neck, punching deep into its mutated flesh but failing to hit anything vital. Mami conjured and fired a dozen magic muskets at once, the combo burst crashing into the creature's side. The beast roared and charged at her, but a Concussive Shot to the face from Garrus stunned it enough that Mami was able to get out of the way. Samus had switched to her Power Beam, and fired a Super Missile that hit the creature in the right rear leg, blasting off its Phazon plating and damaging it. Meanwhile, Homura charged up magical energy as she prepared one of the new techniques the DDF had taught her:

"_Sagitta Magica – Series Ignis_!"

Several bolts of Fire-type magic formed and shot out, curving through the air and crashing into the beast's head and upper body. The conjured flames burned its hide, weakening it as the Witch thrashed in fury. Fire gave way to ice as Samus hit the creature with an Ice Spreader shot, freezing a large chunk of the Corrupted Witch's side. The frozen portion was then shattered by a Concussive Shot from Garrus, exposing a portion of the creature's innards. The exposed section was then blasted by another barrage from Mami.

"_That_ had to hurt" Garrus said.

Indeed, the Corrupted Witch was not doing so well anymore. It stumbled briefly, feeling the pain of its damaged leg and the wounds in its sides. Realizing the beast was on its last legs, Samus readied another Super Missile, while Homura pulled out an M41 rocket launcher and Mami formed her Finale Cannon. A second later, the three blasts impacted the Witch all at the same time in both sides and the face. It let out a weak roar, still trying to fight for life… until a shot from Garrus' sniper rifle pierced its weakened skull plating and punched through its head. The Witch went silent and toppled over, twitching a few times and then going still. Its body then rapidly broke down into particles of Phazon and Darkness that drifted away.

The pocket realm began to waver and dissolve, taking the Phazon with it. Soon the quartet was returned to the 'normal' realm. Sitting where the Witch had fallen was a single Grief Seed, crackling with electric-blue energy, a dull purplish-blue rather than the normal black, with jagged edges.

"So even the Seed was corrupted…" Homura murmured.

The team approached the Phazon-corrupted Grief Seed, keeping their suits/shields on but otherwise relaxed… and when they neared it, a blue comet of energy crashed in from out of nowhere, knocking them all back off their feet with the shockwave from landing. A dark figure crouched over the Corrupted Grief Seed, which floated up and into its/her hand. The figure, wearing blue and black armor with glowing blue shoulder-pads, a Y-form visor that glowed blue, and an odd-looking arm cannon on its/her right arm, grasped the Seed. As Samus and the others looked on in shock, Dark Samus let out its/her dark, heavily distorted laugh, and then in another burst of power it/she vanished.

"H-How…?" Samus murmured. "How is she still alive? I left her in a thousand pieces on Dark Aether, while it was undergoing dimensional collapse! How in the hell is she still alive?"

"As I recall," Mami said, "she can regenerate so long as any Phazon still exists. You'd have to destroy all of it to destroy her."

"We should let the higher-ups know that thing's still on the loose" Garrus said. "From what the recordings of your adventures on Aether show, Aran, she's a major threat."

"And now she has a Grief Seed pre-tainted by Phazon's power – _her_ power" Homura added.

"…Suit check" Samus said after a few seconds. "Anyone have any radiation exposure?"

"I'm good" Garrus replied.

"The TSAB's haz-op shield protected me" Mami said.

"Same here" Homura said.

"And I'm clean, too. Come on; let's get back to the ships. The others need to know about this."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

_**Starshot**_** Trans-Dimensional Slipspace Portal Room**

**Same Day – 3:46 PM**

Gamma & Theta Teams, the Equestria Group, and the five local girls all waited in the large room that contained the slipspace translocation portal linked to several other portals in the DDF's multiversal territories. There was a multitude of additional DDF members due to come through, starting with a second group from Equestria. Hopefully, a surplus of on-hand personnel would make it easier to track and kill Witches and any more Heartless/Unversed/Demon incursions.

The slipspace portal came to life as several individuals traversed through a specially-shielded region of the non-Euclidean realm. Soon, six Equestrians emerged: Indigo Ember (a.k.a. Corona Agent Chi), Azure Feather (Agent Omicron), Big Macintosh, Firefly (now fitted with a fully-functional biosynthetic wing), and Diamond & Silver.

"Hey, big bro" Applejack said. "Y'all have any trouble?"

"Nnnope."

"…You guys do remember the whole 'super-slowed aging' thing with dimensional travel, right?"

"Eeyup. We all had a looong talk about it, an' decided to go ahead with it. An' Rarity & Pinkie's cousins already made the jump, visited Midchilda for a bit. Trixie's family an' Twilight's folks are plannin' ta check out Mahora, too."

As Dash and her mother hugged and the Crusaders welcomed Diamond & Silver, the portal swirled with life again. Out of it stepped a single little girl, long golden-blonde hair sweeping as she walked, her little body clad in a tight black sleeveless top and a black silk miniskirt, with thigh-high stockings. Her blue eyes held the look of experience, analyzing everything. This was no 'little girl'.

"Hello, Master" Negi bowed.

"I hear you've gotten into another mess, Negi" Evangeline grinned. "Par for the course for you, huh?"

"What can I say?" the boy grinned back. "I'm a magnet for trouble."

"Indeed." She walked over to the five native girls. "So this is the local group…" Looking them over, her gaze locked on Homura, her magical sense detecting something interesting with the girl. "Temporal manipulation abilities, and…" She walked close to the girl. "There is much negative emotion locked up in your heart – sadness and anger. And you have a fairly large amount of magical power, as well. …I believe that there is a technique of mine you may be able to safely wield."

"Evangeline?" Negi asked. "Do you mean-"

"Yes, I do."

Out of the slipspace portal stepped Asuna, Konoka, Setsuna, Yue, Nodoka, Chisame, Anya, Kotarō, and Chachamaru.

"Alright!" Kotarō pounded his fists together. "Bring these 'Witch' things on!"

"Sit, boy" Chisame replied in a deadpan tone. "You'll get your chance for a good scrap. For now, let's settle in first."

"It will be interesting to see what this world's magical warriors are capable of" Setsuna said.

"Well," Anya said, "I, for one, just want a chance to shine! I've been training a lot, and I wanna see how much it's paid off!"

The portal lit up again as another, smaller individual came through. He was one of the more recent additions to the Dimensional Defense Force, he & his friends having been found by and joining it a few months before the two coalitions united, right after thwarting the Black Arms' invasion. Upon seeing him, Sayaka and Erika gasped, being fairly big fans of his fictional counterpart's game series.

"Hey, guys!" Sonic said. "Mind if I join the party?"

"Sure thing, man" Teana replied. "I have a feeling we're gonna be fighting a hell of a lot of monsters here. Anyone else coming?"

"Yeah, there are two more groups coming through."

Again the portal whirled as another group was about to come through it. It turned out to be a group from the shinobi world – Naruto, Kakashi, Sai, Killer-Bee, Rock Lee, Hinata, and Sasuke; a few of the coalitions' members were still a little wary of the Uchiha boy, even though he'd switched sides for good in the wake of questioning the previous Hokage and had then helped take down the 10-Tails, and he now said that he'd only snatch the rank of Hokage and change the shinobi system if Naruto couldn't ("I'll give Tsunade and the numbskull a chance to make things right. If they can and do, I'll support them, but if they can't I'm taking the hat from them and doing it myself."). Sakura and Tsunade, who were already present, came up to meet them.

"How bad is it?" Kakashi asked.

"It's too early to tell" Tsunade replied. "We've only been here for long enough for one 'Witch' to attack, earlier today. Our people took it down easily enough, but later ones may be stronger."

"Do we know what these things are after?" Sasuke asked.

"Just causing as much havoc and destruction as possible, from what we can tell" Sakura replied. "From what Akemi-san has described of these things, the average Bureau mage foot-soldier or Konoha mid-rank shinobi wouldn't stand a chance against them, but for powerhouses like us, Gamma Team, or Takamachi-san's people, they're pushovers."

"Everyone," Sonic called out, "you may wanna step back! The last group through is gonna need some room!"

Everyone moved back, lining the walls of the large chamber, just as the portal enlarged to around 50 feet across. A trio of vehicles drove through – a Peterbuilt-379 semi-truck with blue-flames red paintjob, a red Ferrari 458 Italia, and a blue Mercedes-Benz E550. And all three of them had the Autobot symbol somewhere on their bodies. As one, they began transforming, assuming the forms of Optimus Prime, Mirage, and Wheeljack.

"We came as quickly as we were able" Optimus said. "How is the team I sent ahead to this world?"

"Jetfire's investigating an anomalous signal out in the mountains," Teana replied, "while Sideswipe, Ironhide, and the Twins are on patrol down in the city."

Optimus nodded. "We'll head down and assist in patrol soon, once we've learned what we need to about the situation here."

As she looked around at all the heavy hitters now present, Kyōko grinned. "The Witches won't stand a chance."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

_**Starshot **_**Starboard Rec Room**

**Same Day – 5:47 PM**

Gamma & Sigma teams and the Equestria Group gathered in the rec room. Apparently, Twilight had been working on something and wanted to show it.

"You're certain you've got it right, Twi?" Dash asked.

"I'm positive, Rainbow" Twilight replied. "I have successfully learned the spell that Master Yen-Sid used to turn Gamma Team into ponies when they came to our world. With this, we'll be able to assume human forms, so as to better fit in on worlds where ponies aren't known, _and_ we'll have instinctive knowledge on how to use our new bodies, like Gamma did for theirs."

"Are you sure you've got it nailed down, Sparkle?" Teana asked.

"Yes. I'll admit, my initial practice casting… didn't go so well; my proportions were off and my 'skin' was the same color as my pony form's fur. Dash said it looked 'freaky wrong'. But _this_ time I've got all the kinks worked out! I am 100% sure of that!"

"All right, then. Let's see it."

Twilight closed her eyes in concentration, her magical energy surging into visibility around her, orbiting and enveloping her body. Her body 'brightened', becoming a bright, featureless 3D silhouette of magenta light. The silhouette quickly shifted form, taking the shape of a kneeling human. The silhouette solidified/faded as Twilight's transformation completed, and she stood up.

Twilight had been transformed into a young-adult girl, around 19 or 20 by the looks of it, standing about 5'4" tall, with waist-length hair the same colors as her real-form's mane & tail, light skin that looked pale but like it was _juuust_ starting to tan, a slightly-skinny frame with a moderate bustline, and wearing an open dark-purple vest with her Cutie Mark over the left breast, a tight light-purple shirt, blue jeans that hugged her hips, and simple tennis-shoes with plain white cotton socks. She opened her eyes, giving herself a good look-over.

"Lookin' good, Twilight" Shion said.

"Yeah, _lots_ better than the first attempt" Dash added.

"Kinda used to how dragons and griffons have _four_ digits per extremity…" Twilight murmured as she wiggled the five digits of her hand. "Good thing the spell imparts instinctive knowledge of how to actually _use_ this form."

"So, are you gonna try it on the others?" Marie asked.

"Actually, I'm planning to make it so we can all switch between our pony and human forms at will… or dragon and human, in Spike's case. I'm thinking either a permanent charm, or an external source like an amulet or something." Twilight reversed the transformation, reverting to her pony form. "So," she said, "who wants to try out their new form next?"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**City Park – Pocket Dimension**

**Same Day – 7:05 PM**

"…And that's pretty much what your daughters are caught up in" Col. Holland finished.

After some deliberation, the currently-present DDF higher-ups had decided that, while they could provide the local group with supplies, training, and counseling, the girls could benefit even more from the support that only parents could give. Thus it was that Col. Holland, Tsunade, and Shepard contacted Kirika Miki (Sayaka's father was long gone, either divorced or dead; Holland didn't ask) and Junko & Tomohisa Kaname (with little three-year-old Tatsuya), had them come to this park, and proceeded to explain everything they could. The parents were in quite a shock: Madoka was in training to become a magical girl, and Sayaka had already become one (albeit very recently). What's more, they were partnered with a trio of veteran magical girls who were orphaned, alone, and bearing serious psychological scars.

At least their little girls were receiving proper training before being allowed to really get involved; Sayaka would be part of a full squad for her first few Witch fights and (like the veterans) be with at least one partner for all subsequent battles, while Madoka was being kept out of "Boss-level" fights until her skills had improved more (though she was a very fast learner, already good enough to be allowed to participate in group skirmishes against base-level foot soldiers, like Familiars and standard Heartless & Unversed).

"My baby… a magical girl…" Sayaka's mother murmured.

"…Madoka always has been looking for ways to help others in order to give meaning to her own life" Junko said. "This whole situation… doesn't really surprise me quite as much as I think it should."

"I'm sorry if this isn't something you want to hear" Shepard said. "I understand if you…"

"I'll always love my Sayaka no matter what" Kirika replied. "Don't you worry about that. And… I can't help but feel proud of her, and relieved that she isn't doing this alone, that she has comrades and training."

"Same for us" Tomohisa said, as Junko nodded. "It's still a shock, but…"

"But she's our little girl," Junko said, "and she's set to become a hero. That's something any parents should be proud of."

"We have the girls waiting in the park outside of this pocket realm" Tsunade said. "Shall we bring them in?"

The two mothers looked to each other for a moment, and then nodded. Shepard sent a signal with his Omnitool, and a few seconds later reality seemed to ripple a little in one spot, as Madoka, Sayaka, Homura, Mami, and Kyōko were brought into the pocket realm. Madoka and Sayaka made guilty smiles at their parents. Then, as one, the four _Puella Magi _transformed, the three parents looking on with awe as flashes of blue, purple, gold, and red light accompanied the girls' transformations, emerging in their Barrier Jacket-analogues. Madoka's body then flared with a modest amount of magical power.

"Kinda pathetic, huh?" she said. "But Homura-chan says that something terrible could happen if I make a _Puella Magi _Contract, so I have to take the slow path in learning magic. So I'm still weak right now…"

"Don't sell yourself short, Kaname-san" Teana said as she entered the pocket realm. "You have a _massive_ amount of magical power inside you; it's just that you've barely started learning how to access it, so you can't really tap into it yet."

Sayaka looked especially nervous as she walked up to her mother. But then the woman hugged her, and the tension deflated. The other girls slowly approached, and Madoka was quickly pulled into a hug by her parents.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Kaname Residence**

**9:25 PM**

Homura was confused. This was another thing that had never happened in previous loops…

After the reveal was done, the parents spent a little more time learning what they could about the three orphaned _Puella Magi_. In the end, when it was time to go home for the night, Junko & Tomohisa Kaname had insisted on Mami and Homura staying at their house for the foreseeable future (they had a big house with three guest rooms, so they had room). Half-hearted protestations by the two girls that they had their own apartments with things in them were responded to by the DDF setting up temporary teleporter links. At the same time, Kirika Miki had taken Kyōko in, giving the girl a roof over her head and a warm bed to sleep in for the first time in a long while.

Earlier this evening, they had all sat down and had dinner together, the Kanames treating Mami and Homura like part of the family, to their surprise. The whole thing had stirred emotions within the two, as memories and feelings long missed or suppressed came to the forefront, of doing the same thing with their now-departed parents, of being family. It had really gotten to Mami, who'd shed a few tears in the middle of dinner, being comforted by Madoka & her parents… which helpfully distracted them from the fact that Homura was trying very hard not to let herself break down as well.

Homura didn't understand. Ever since how the third loop had ended, she'd strived to suppress all facets of her old self that made her 'weak'. She thought she'd succeeded, but this simple family night had opened up old wounds. She missed her parents, both dead when she was seven years old; she hadn't thought about them in ages, but having dinner with the Kanames, watching them comfort Mami as she had her own minor breakdown from the same emotions, had brought to the forefront of Homura's mind the ache in her heart she fought so hard to ignore.

Right now she sat in one of the guest rooms, on the bed she'd be sleeping in, wearing pajamas lent to her by Madoka; she wasn't going to bed for at least another hour, but she had changed into them anyway at Madoka's cheerful insistence, and Madoka's ensuing statement that she looked cute in them had brought a blush to her face, which had deepened when Mami and Junko commented on how surprisingly cute she looked when blushing. Her thoughts were interrupted by the room door opening, as Junko Kaname walked in.

"How are you settling in, Homura-chan?" she asked.

"Fine…" Homura replied. She looked away, unsure, as Junko had a seat on the bed next to her, and then startled a little as the woman's hand rested on her shoulder.

"This must be kind of overwhelming for you, huh?"

The young girl said nothing, but nodded her head while still keeping her gaze turned away; she knew that if she looked at the mother talking with her, her control might slip.

"You've been alone for half of your life, and from what I understand and can tell, you have a lot of sadness and pain locked up deep inside." She reached a hand out, gently cupping Homura's chin and turning the girl to face her, giving her a warm smile as she saw the emotions slowly building in the girl's surprised eyes.

"I won't pretend to know or understand what you've been through," Junko continued, "but you don't have to lock all your emotions away like this. You could lose your humanity, lose who you are. Even if it's only once in a while, even if it's just with me, you should let yourself feel."

"…I can't" Homura replied in a quiet tone, her voice cracking a little as it became incredibly hard to hold it all in. "There's too much hurt in me. If… If I let any of it out, and I start crying, I don't think I'll be able to stop it."

"I'll be right here, sweetie. …You don't have to isolate yourself anymore. You have a place and people to come back to now, and as long as you want it, Tomohisa and I will watch over you." She pulled the girl into a hug, holding her tight, one hand softly stroking her hair. "Welcome home, Homura-chan."

That did it. Junko felt Homura's body trembling, and after a few seconds she felt and heard the first quiet sob as the girl hugged her back, burying her face in the woman's shoulder. She held the girl close, gently rubbing her back and stroking her hair as she continued to try, letting out little whimpers as her body shook with each sob.

By tomorrow, Homura would be in top form, in control and ready to do her part. But right now, she was a sad, scared, lonely, broken little girl, seeking and receiving comfort and warmth in a mother's arms.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: A few more allies, a few more battles, and (if I can fit it in) a revelation


	4. Soul

To the angry Guest Reviewer named 'GAR': I don't know _how_ to "moderate Reviews". When I saw your big super-reviews in my email inbox, I waited and waited for them to appear in the story's Reviews section, but they never did, and I have no idea how to make them appear. I went to my user control panel area thing on the site, and looked _allllll_ over but didn't find anything to "Moderate Reviews". Oh, and in the e-mails, it only shows the first few paragraphs before "truncated due to length; go to the site to read the rest", but I go to the site, look all over the place, and can't find them. So I have no idea of what you're trying to say in them beyond the first couple paragraphs.

EDIT: Your first Review showed up in the Review section as I was typing this chapter… on the morning of the 26th, the day after your _second_ review appeared in my Inbox. Probably, your second one will appear a couple days after I post this chapter. So in short, I'm not ignoring you. It just takes a REALLY LONG TIME for your reviews to show up in the Review Box so I can read the entirety of them. EDIT: And your second bigg'un finally appeared when I was wrapping this chapter up.

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Three Days Later – 3:35 PM**

The past couple of days hadn't been too eventful. While the five local girls continued their training (so far they had all improved their physical reinforcement magic, boosting their strength and speed, and Madoka had started on simple element manipulation), there had been three Witch attacks, which were quickly dealt with by Sora, Sonic, and Optimus, who all dispatched their monstrous foes with little difficulty. Kirika Miki had soon found herself mothering Kyōko, who couldn't bring herself to object to it; meanwhile, Homura had become quite close with Junko Kaname, very gradually letting her barriers down around her, while the woman in question and her husband were also giving Mami the chance to stop worrying about staying strong for everyone else's sake and let herself act her age and seek comfort with them.

Kyōsuke had been discharged from the hospital just yesterday; Sayaka had been part of the group of volunteer escorts. Afterward, Kaidan had swung by to check up on the family. At Sayaka's request, the Kamijō family had not yet been informed of the _Puella Magi_'s identities; Sayaka wanted to tell him herself, in a way and at a time of her choosing. She had been spending quite a bit of time with him, though, just hanging out together. Also, Tsunade was almost done with giving Thane his curative treatments; already he could breathe easier than he could in years, and had more energy and stamina.

Yesterday, Homura had disappeared for several hours, following Evangeline and Negi across the dimensions, to Mahora and into Eva's Resort. Later that day, they'd returned, with Homura looking tired but confident; when the others asked how she was, only Eva and Negi noticed the briefest flicker of familiar runes/symbols on her hand and arm when she replied she was fine. Homura had also petitioned Rock Lee to teach her how to improve her speed, and he'd been happy to oblige. Meanwhile, Setsuna and Sasuke had started helping Sayaka with her sword skills (to the Konoha group's surprise that Sasuke had the patience to teach anyone anything).

Today, a 'minor' problem had made itself known. A pair of Type-B demons in the Dark Voice's service had been sent to one of the DDF's member worlds – specifically, the Earth where Duel Monsters reigned supreme. They hadn't caused any trouble, but they had rediscovered the old dark magic ritual of the Shadow Games. As it had become known that Duel Monsters existed as a regular card-game in Marie's world, and she had introduced it to the rest of the Team, the two demons had challenged Teana to a Shadow Game. Before the duel could properly begin, however, a member of the DDF had tracked the demons and followed them here: Atem (he had been called back from the afterlife to fight alongside his former host Yugi against the foes that the 'other' coalition faced). He had promptly joined in at Teana's side, making it a double-duel, with everyone else stuck as spectators, unable to interfere.

Right now, Teana and Atem were at 1200 and 870 Life Points, respectively, while their demonic foes were both at 1100. The two demons' monsters were unrecognizable, not corresponding to any actual card, looking more like 'card' versions of Demons; one Type-B had two monsters with 1600 ATK and 400 DEF alongside one with 2700 ATK and 1650 DEF that had just destroyed Atem's Dark Magician, while the other Type-B had a single 1600/400 and a 2200/1900 monster. Teana had two Red-Eyes Black Dragons (one Normal-Summoned, the other Special-Summoned by Red-Eyes Black Chick's effect) and a Bright Star Dragon on her section of the field, while Atem had a Dark Magician Girl (its ATK upped to 2300), a Celtic Guardian, and a Gallis The Star Beast. The battle had been quite back-and-forth, as shown by the participants' Life Points. The two Type-B Demons looked a little nervous, eyeing the twin black dragons under Teana's control.

"Our move" Teana said, as she and her partner drew their cards. They looked at their hands, and then to each other, and smiled.

"Time to wrap this up" the redhead said. "First, I equip Metalmorph to one of my Black Dragons, and then tribute it to summon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon from my hand!" The black-hide dragon transformed into one with silver metallic plating. "Then, I tribute my other Red-Eyes to Special-Summon my Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon!" The corresponding beast appeared, its ATK shooting up to 3900 due to the five Dragon-types already in her Graveyard. "Then, I remove Bright Star Dragon from play to Special-Summon my Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon!" The dark-metal-covered beast appeared. "Finally, I activate Black Luster Ritual, tributing the Buster Blader in my hand to bring forth Black Luster Soldier!" The human figure clad in black and gold armor appeared, gripping its shield and sword.

"Oh…" one of the demons started.

"Crap…" the other finished.

"And as for me…" Atem said, "I first sacrifice my Gallis and my Celtic Guardian to summon my second Dark Magician!" The dark-red-armored mage he'd won from Arkana appeared. "Then, I activate Black Magic Ritual, sacrificing three monsters from my hand to summon Magician of Black Chaos!" The eccentrically-garbed chaos mage appeared alongside his two fellows.

"Oh," "shit!"

"Now…" "my dragons," "and my mages," "WIPE THEM OUT!"

The seven monsters' attacks became a solid wave of energy that pulverized the demon pair's monsters and then hit them.

"OH," "FUUUUUUU-"

With the two Type-Bs defeated, the Shadow Game ended; the mysterious purple-hued pocket realm dissolved, taking the evil beings' souls with it and returning everyone else to the normal realm. Atem walked up to Teana.

"Well done, Lanstar" he said as he shook her hand. "You're a pretty good duelist for someone with less than a year's experience."

"I had a lot of help" the redhead replied. "Marie taught me how to play and helped me find some good cards; they're not quite as hard to come by in worlds where it's a regular card game as they are in your world. So, you stickin' around?"

"I'm afraid not. There were reports of possible trouble on my Earth, so I should head back and make sure nothing gets out of sorts with me absent. However, our side of the coalition _is_ sending two very powerful individuals to provide a little extra muscle for the forces here. They'll be here soon. Farewell, and I hope for the chance to fight alongside you again someday."

With that, he climbed aboard a waiting UT-44 Falcon, which whisked him away, heading for the _Starshot_ and its transdimensional slipspace portal. The others gathered around Teana, congratulating her victory.

"I wonder who they're sending this time…" Aqua said.

Suddenly, there was a minor disturbance in space-time nearby, drawing everyone's attention as the air seemed to flicker with orange, dark-blue, and white. After about a second of this, two figures appeared, the shorter one removing his hand from the taller's shoulder with an annoyed expression while the taller removed his index and middle fingers from his forehead. Upon recognizing the two, many of the present DDF members felt astonished awe. These two particular men were from a universe that had a fictional counterpart in nearly all realms, and even those who hadn't seen it or were from the few realms that didn't have it had watched the recorded 'footage' regarding their universe. Still, the fact remained that many of the present group were utterly starstruck at being in the presence of two of the most famous heroes in anime history.

"That took a fair bit longer than usual, Kakarot" the shorter one said with an ever-present scowl.

"Sorry, Vegeta" the taller one replied with a sheepish grin. "It was a pretty long trip in cross-dimensional terms, so even my Instant Transmission wasn't quite instant."

Aqua had to catch Sayaka as she tilted backward, the younger blue-haired girl feeling a little overwhelmed. Marie, Negi, and Mana K. weren't faring much better, the three of them almost trembling with excitement, stars in little Negi's eyes. As the two Saiyans walked up to the group, it took the trio all they had to hold it together.

"It's an honor to meet the two of you" Teana said to them.

"Same here" Goku replied. "We've seen a lot of what you guys can do, and some of it's pretty darn impressive. That _Susanō _of yours and Sasuke's could probably tank a Super Saiyan's attacks."

"For a while, at least" Vegeta added.

"S-So you're going to be helping us here, too?" Marie asked.

"Not all the time, unfortunately" Vegeta replied. "We're going to be popping in & out, handling issues on other worlds, but we'll swing by here periodically, and we'll assist whenever we're here."

At this point, Team 7 arrived.

"Hey guys!" Naruto said. "What'd we… miss…?"

Two famously powerful _ki_-using heroes met for the first time, staring at each other in silence for several seconds. Finally, Naruto spoke:

"I'll teach you the Rasengan if you teach me the Kamehameha."

"Deal" Goku replied, as the two shook hands. "Now let us solidify the deal-making with a humongous meal."

"I'm game for that."

Sasuke and Vegeta let out simultaneous sighs and facepalms. Then they turned to each other.

"Gallick Gun for Chidori?" Vegeta asked.

"Deal" Sasuke replied.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Same Day – 4:30 PM**

A dimension-shift barrier had been erected over nearly the entirety of Mitakihara – not because of any single über-powerful enemy, but rather a swarm of 'minor' enemies popping up all over the place. It was mostly Demons, with some Unversed and a handful of Heartless. The DDF forces on hand scrambled, dividing into groups so as to deal with the dark entities, which had now been forcefully isolated from the mundanes. As the fight kicked into gear, a transmission rang out:

"_Command to Prime, we've detected a Cybertronian energy signature that just entered the area through a transwarp rift. We cannot identify it._"

"There weren't any other Autobots scheduled to cross over" Optimus Prime replied as he, in truck form, bulldozed through a pack of Unversed on the way to his assigned combat zone. "Perhaps a Decepticon found a way through. Tell everyone to be on the lookout."

As the battle-composed-of-multiple-small-battles raged, a pair of M808B Scorpion tanks rolled out from a drop-off point. They started rolling down a main street, and as they progressed a third Scorpion joined them at an intersection. A pack of Type-Es up ahead were blown to bits by a 90mm explosive shell from Scorpion #3, while S#1's machine gun mowed down the accompanying Type-Gs. The trio of tanks hung a right around a mall, the marines manning their machineguns taking out a pack of Scrappers.

As they passed through a small business area, something unexpected emerged from up ahead: a Witch. Seeing as it looked identical to the Witch that Sonic had killed two days ago, that meant this was a Familiar that had someone escaped the battle and fed off enough human life-force to transform into a copy of its progenitor. However, in this situation it was completely outgunned; three cannon shots, one from each Scorpion, brought it down before it could do anything, and the three tanks continued heading for their objective.

Soon the trio of tanks reached a large intersection, and each of them went down one of the three paths (other than the one they came from). Scorpion #3 rolled on straight, heading for the area where Optimus, Marie, Subaru, and Mami were leading a group of soldiers in mowing down Unversed. The tank approached the battle-zone, its cannon blowing away clusters of Unversed. The marine manning the machinegun hopped out, adding his DMR's fire to the cause. Soon, the area was clear.

"Sir," Charon reported, "there is something interesting about that Scorpion."

"And what would that be?" Marie asked her Device.

"According to scans, it does not have a driver."

No sooner had everyone in earshot processed this, than the tank began to shift, parts moving and transforming with a metallic sound of five climbing 'notes'. Within several seconds, the 'tank' had assumed the form of a Cybertronian standing at least 40 feet tall, his tank-form's gun sticking out over his right shoulder. His glowing blue optics focused on the Autobot leader present.

"Hey, Optimus. Sorry it took me so long to find you, sir."

Behind his faceplate, Optimus smiled. "Good to see you again, Warpath. We could use your firepower."

"As always, huh?" Warpath grinned. "Ratchet gave me the low-down on everything before I came here. Sounds like we're mixed up in something pretty big, sir."

"As is usual for us, old friend."

"_Optimus,_" Ironhide radioed, "_have you found out anything about that Cybertronian signal?_"

"Is that you, Ironhide?" Warpath asked. "Still kickin', huh?"

"_Warpath! Ha! I was wondering when you'd show up! Good to hear from you!_"

"Likewise, ya trigger-happy loon."

"_Hey, I'm not the one who took out that bridge by firing an artillery shell to take out a lone Decepticon spy-drone clinging to the support._"

"And took down the convoy of cloaked 'Cons trying to sneak across it, don't forget that part. And what about you? Blown any more planets up?"

"_Oh, come on! That was __**one**__ planet, it was uninhabitable, and it was about to blow up on its own anyway!_"

"Right. Need any help?"

"_Nah, we're good – just on mop-up duty right now. I'll meet you on the ship; we'll swap stories, like old times._"

"Looking forward to it, Iron. See you there."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**City Central Park (Dimension-Shifted)**

**25 Minutes Later**

Most of the personnel had gathered here after finishing their assigned clear-out tasks. A few teams were still out & about, sending back progress reports now and then. The Local Five and the Harmony Element bearers were present, as were Sigma Team, Teana, Sarah, Ahsoka, Trixie, Erio & Caro, Zaeed, Jacob, and a handful of soldiers.

"We're getting a communiqués from Marie's group" Ahsoka said, referring to the team composed of Marie, Erika & Timmy, Sonic, and Sakura.

"Patch 'em through" Teana replied.

A holoscreen appeared showing Marie with her usual grin, the background behind her looking rather warped and bizarre and multi-colored, with sounds of light combat in the background.

"We found a Witch!" she said with an exaggerated British accent. "May we burn her?"

There was a quiet 'snerk' from Homura, who was hiding a grin with her hand and trembling with suppressed giggles as she remembered one of her old favorites. Zaeed chuckled, too, while a lot of the others just looked confused. Sarah walked up to the holoscreen, grinning.

"Does she weigh the same as a duck?" she asked with an odd tone.

"Uhhhh… Maybe?"

"Go ahead then!"

"Yes'm!"

The transmission cut. After a few seconds, Trixie turned to Teana.

"Is this some kind of human pop-culture reference?"

Teana raised her finger and opened her mouth to answer, but said nothing, and after a few seconds she turned to Mami.

"Is it some kind of Earth pop-culture reference?"

Mami raised her finger and opened her mouth to answer… and then turned to Sarah.

"Is it some kind of American pop-culture reference?"

"British, actually" Zaeed replied.

He then pulled up his Omnitool, enlarging the ensuing holoscreen and playing a certain musical vid-clip.

"_Camelot!_" "_Camelot!_" "_Camelot!_" "_It's only a model._" "_Shh!_"

-3 Minutes Later-

"_On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place._"

As the clip ended, expressions of bewilderment were on the faces of some of the unfamiliar.

"What" Trixie started.

"the" Ahsoka continued.

"fuck?" Jacob finished.

Pinkie Pie giggled. "I liked it! I wanna find this movie and watch the whole thing!"

Homura, meanwhile, was still blushing a little; even though she'd been quiet and toward the back of the group, out of people's range of attention, Madoka had caught her quietly singing along under her breath with a rare grin on her face. The other girl looked to her and giggled lightly, causing her blush to deepen a bit.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Miki Residence**

**Next Day – 11:15 AM**

"Ha! Got ya again!"

Kyōko celebrated her newest victory against Sayaka on the latter's _Super Smash Bros._ game; the two were currently at 7 to 5, in Kyōko's favor, and the first to score 10 victories was the overall winner. And the characters and stages had to be Random-Selected, for a little extra challenge. Madoka, Mami, and Homura were present as spectators, as were Sora and Twilight Sparkle.

"I wonder what it would be like if I were in this game…" the Keyblade-wielder murmured. "Like, what would my moves be?"

"I think we should take another 15-minute break" Sayaka said.

"Alright, alright" Kyōko replied.

Sayaka's mother walked in, this being her day off work, and set a platter of snacks down on the table; the girls quickly went for them. As they ate, Sayaka pulled out her Soul Gem, just staring at the beautiful little shiny blue stone held in a gold frame. After a few seconds, Mami followed suit, holding it up to the light coming through the opening window, making it sparkle. Sayaka reached over to Kyōko, sticking her hand in the redhead's pocket.

"Where's your gem, Kyōko?" she asked.

"Eh, I gave it to Takamachi-san when she left a couple minutes ago; she was talking with someone and then she was gonna take it up to the _Starshot_ to examine it."

"What?-!"

Everyone turned to Homura, who had made the very uncharacteristic outburst.

"You can't do that!" she said. "You have to keep your Soul Gem within 100 meters of your body or-"

"What?" Kyōko interrupted. "Why are you freaking out so much? What's so impor-"

She stopped mid-sentence, the light leaving her eyes, and she fell over, going still. Immediately everyone rushed over, concerned.

"This can't be…" Twilight murmured as she ran a Scanning Spell. "H-Her heart and brain functions are… completely stopped."

"S-She's…" Mami stammered in disbelief and horror. "She's dead?"

Homura, meanwhile, shouted out telepathically so loudly that everyone within 500 meters 'heard' it. "_Takamachi! Bring Kyōko's Soul Gem back here __**right now**__!_"

In a manner of seconds, Nanoha flew in through the open window. She gasped as she saw Kyōko lying still and lifeless.

"Give it!" Homura shouted. "Give it, give it! Hurry!"

Nanoha quickly handed the gold-framed crimson gem over to Homura, who placed it in Kyōko's hand. Within seconds, the redhead stirred, groaning lightly.

"Why am I on the floor?" she asked. "And why are you all staring at me?"

"Y-You…" Twilight stammered. "You were dead… The second Nanoha got 100 meters away from you, you dropped dead. And when Homura touched your Soul Gem to your body, you came back to life instantly like nothing was wrong…"

Kyōko now looked visibly shaken. "What?" she squeaked out.

"What the hell's going on here?" Sayaka said in a ragged whisper.

Sora gently grabbed the crimson gem, closing his eyes in concentration for a few seconds. His eyes snapped open.

"No way…" he said. "This gem… It's her Heart."

"B-But…" Mami replied, looking quite shaken. "T-That means… I mean, what you guys call the Heart is what most mundanes call the… s-soul…"

"That is exactly right."

Everyone startled, turning to see Kyubey sitting on the windowsill.

"What are you talking about?" Kyōko asked in a worryingly low tone. "Are you saying that… this gem is… me?"

"Yes" the enigmatic little being replied. "Because your bodies of flesh are fragile and fall apart too easily, even a small fight can leave you broken. In that situation, you'd be useless, and there would be no way you could win. That's why we – my people – decided to extract your souls and transfer them into the Soul Gems. If you _become_ the Soul Gem, then it'd be a lot easier to utilize your magical power, and even if your bodies were destroyed, we could use magic to repair them. This would allow you to plunge into battle without even the slightest hesitation. Don't you think this presents you with nothing but advantages? As long as the Soul Gem remains unharmed, you _Puella Magi_ are invincible. It's magnificent, isn't it?"

"_You're lying!-!_"

Mami's voice, normally so calm and controlled, was rough and filled with emotion. She was trembling, holding her Soul Gem.

"This… This thing is me? That can't be true! You've got to be lying! This… This is a just a tool for using magic! This… Why? …This _thing_ is _me_?-!"

"Allow me to demonstrate" Kyubey said as he hopped over to Sayaka's Soul Gem.

"Sayaka, say that you've been impaled by a spear. How much pain do you think you could take before you simply went into shock?"

He touched his paw to Sayaka's Soul Gem, which glowed faintly. Sayaka cried out, gripping both arms over her stomach as she dropped to the floor, trembling. He twisted his paw a little, and she let out a loud, strangled cry, writhing in pain.

"Sayaka!" Kirika frantically knelt down by her daughter, holding her close as she whimpered and tried to gasp.

"Stop it!" Madoka shouted. "Stop it now, Kyubey!"

Kyubey removed his paw from the Soul Gem, and the pain assailing Sayaka faded away near-instantly.

"Have you girls not once thought something strange was going on?" he said. "You've been slammed into walls, fallen from high places, taken damage that would kill normal humans, and come out totally unscathed. And those injuries you took did not cause nearly as much pain as they would have. This is because your bodies and souls are no longer fully connected. With time and the proper technique, you could even completely shut down all of your body's pain receptors… though this would cause a significant decrease in reaction time, so I would not recommend it."

"Why…?" Kyōko said, anger building in her voice. "Why would you do this to us?-!"

"…I really don't understand you humans. Why do you get so worked up over where your soul is? There's all this anger and resentment just because we gave your souls a tangible form. You don't even believe in the existence of things such as "souls" half the time. Besides, it's not like you truly understand what they are, anyway."

"W-We're… zombies…" Sayaka whimpered out.

"Incorrect. A more accurate translation in human terms would be 'lich', not 'zombie'."

"This matter of not even being human any longer once we become _Puella Magi_…" Mami said, distraught. "Why didn't you just tell us this from the start?"

"My request had always been "Please become a magical girl", right? The one who mistakenly assumed that being a magical girl still equated to being human was you, was it not? Besides, Tomoe Mami, had you not decided to become a magical girl, you would have died with the rest of your family anyway, right? Humans eventually pass away regardless of any outside interference, so having the chance to become a magical girl is quite lucky, I'd say. Randomly dying for no particular reason is so wasteful. On the other hand, besides the times you're fighting witches, your life as a _Puella Magi_ is no different from being a normal human, don't you think?"

"You turned us into _monsters_!" Sayaka shouted.

"I made it so you could fight more effectively. It is a practical, logical act, and I cannot understand why so many beings get so upset about it."

"How can you say that?-!" Twilight said. "Do you even _have_ feelings?-!"

"Of course not."

This was another little bombshell for the _Puellae_.

"Among my people, emotions are considered a mental illness. To us, every human is born insane. But your insanity, your emotions, can somehow generate extraordinary power that we cannot. It is unfortunate that your 'emotions' overpower your logic more often than not, though; I do not desire to know what would happen to my people if we lived that way. Well, I have other things that I must attend to, so I shall be leaving now. Oh, and one more important tidbit: if a _Puella Magi_'s Soul Gem is destroyed, she dies instantly. Keep that in mind when you fight."

The little white being vanished into thin air, leaving an eerily quiet room.

"…We are going to cast every long-term protection spell known to magic on these gems" Twilight said after a long silence.

"…I'm so stupid…" Mami trembled. "I've been fighting for others… from a sense of responsibility… I've been putting on airs… letting it all go to my head… all of it. And all this time, I've… been turned into…" She sobbed. "I'm such… an idiot…"

"No" Sora replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It doesn't matter what form your Heart is in, Mami. The desire to help and protect people… No matter what, those feelings are a part of your Heart, a part of _you_. That's not affected by where your Heart is located in relation to your body; you're still a gentle, kind-hearted, strong-willed girl who uses her gifts to help protect the world. You're still you, and nothing that little trickster says or does can take that away from you."

Mami looked up at Sora, and despite everything she found a small, genuine smile coming to her face as his words sank in, giving her strength. "Thank you…" she said.

"…Homura-chan…" Madoka said. "You knew already, didn't you?"

The others turned to Homura, who had her head bowed. "In the previous groups I've worked with," Homura said, "nobody ever believed me when I tried to tell them the truth. The last group accused me of trying to cause dissent and break them up. And now they're all dead except for me. I didn't want that to happen again, so I kept quiet."

"Don't you trust us?" Madoka asked.

"I do. But not all of you fully trust me. No-one ever does…"

Mami and Sayaka felt pangs of guilt over their old suspicion of the black-haired girl.

But then Homura startled a little as she felt Madoka's gentle hand grasp hers. "I do" the pink-haired girl said with a warm smile. "I don't know how to put why I do in words, but… I trust you."

Homura made a little smile. "Thank you…" she whispered.

"Alert" Raising Heart chimed. "Unversed activity detected in the residential sector."

There was a flash of blue and a blur of movement as Sayaka transformed and leapt out the open window, roof-hopping through the area with speed, headed for the trouble area.

"Sayaka!" her mother called out.

"It's alright" Nanoha said. "She probably needs to cool her head a little, distract herself with some low-level monster-slaying. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go spread the word of what we've learned here, so everyone knows what we're dealing with."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Kyōsuke backed away on still-unsteady legs, as the considerably large pack of Floods and Scrappers approached him. Apparently, they had detected his latent magical potential just like the Heartless at the hospital. But this time, it didn't look like there were any dimension-hopping heroes around to help him. He gripped one of his crutches and wielded it like a club; if he was going down, he'd be taking these things with him.

A quartet of Scrappers charged and leapt… when suddenly, a blur of motion swept in, and the four Unversed fell to the ground in cleanly-cut halves, dissipating soon after. The person responsible leapt into the fray, using her sword to cut the Unversed down quickly, her white cape and blue hair fluttering in the breeze. …And as she fought, Kyōsuke recognized her very quickly, feeling shock as he remembered the mention that there were magical girls native to this world. She stood, panting lightly amongst the now-emptied battlefield.

"S… Sayaka?"

She turned to him, a forced smile on her face. "A-Are you alright, Kyōsuke?"

"Yeah… When they rescued me, they did mention there were magical girls already here on this Earth."

"I became one the night of that day. I'm the group rookie, more or less."

He smiled. "This is so cool. I always knew you were the 'shining heroine of justice' type. To know you're out there helping people…"

She turned away from him and sobbed. His expression quickly changed to concern.

"Sayaka? …What's wrong?"

"Kyōsuke…" she whimpered out, trying to keep her tone level. "I… I fell in love with you a few years ago, you know. And it's only gotten stronger and deeper since then. That's why I was a… always hanging out with you, always visiting you at the hospital. …I love you…"

His eyes widened, and a faint blush appeared on his cheeks.

"The… To become a _Puella Magi_, this world's form of magical girl, I m… made a contract with Kyubey, a little pink and white cat-bunny thing. He looks just like what you'd expect from a typical magical-girl show mascot. When you forge a contract, you get a shiny little thing called a Soul Gem; it acts as a transformation trinket, upon other things. But… A-About 15 minutes ago, w-we were all at my house – me, the three other _Puella Magi_, and Madoka who's in training but hasn't forged a Contract yet. Kyōko-san had g-given her Soul Gem to Takamachi to take up to the ship in orbit for study. And… w-when it got 100 meters away from her… she dropped dead. And when Takamachi rushed back, Kyōko-san came back to life the second her Soul Gem touched her. Kyubey… H-He…"

She turned to face him, and he saw tears streaming down her face.

"He _ripped out our souls!_ The 'Soul Gem' isn't just a fancy name! It's our _soul_! When he forges the contract, he rips it out of your body and turns it into a shiny stone! He never told us! He never told any of us about that! H-He says it's for 'convenience', so we can fight without worrying about taking damage; because it turns out his people don't have emotions or empathy so they can't understand they're _robbing us of our humanity!_" She concentrated, and the little blue gem appeared in her hand. "This is me! This… This _thing_ talking to you is j-just a meat-puppet! He turned us all into zombies! He never told us he did this to us! And he doesn't care! He's psychologically _incapable_ of caring at all! He touched my Gem and made me feel the pain of being _impaled through the chest_ just to prove a point!

"I… K-Kyōsuke, I love you so, _so_ much… But I can't! I can't have you; I don't have the right! You can't love someone who's already _dead_! I… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

She turned and began walking away.

"W-Wait! Sayaka!"

She flash-stepped away, roof-hopping as quick as she could, tears streaming from her eyes as she went. Kyōsuke leaned there against the wall, in shock. His heart ached from seeing the girl who… who loved him suffering like that. Unbidden, memories of the time they'd shared, the things they'd done together, rushed through his mind, as did the odd feelings he'd felt recently whenever he was with her.

"I…" he murmured. "I'm such an oblivious fool… Sayaka… I'm so sorry I never noticed…"

After several minutes of thought and reflection, he came to a decision. He got up, a determined look on his face, and his search began.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**90 Minutes Later**

"Any sign of her yet?"

"Unfortunately, no. Not yet."

Sayaka had not returned after slaying the Unversed. She was actively blocking all attempts to contact or locate her telepathically. Now, several DDF volunteers were combing the city for any signs of her, forewarned with the knowledge that she was likely not in the best of places mentally right now. The other _Puella Magi _were, of course, aiding in the search, while Kirika Miki and Madoka waited at an old warehouse that had been transformed into a 'small' groundside base for the visiting realm-hopping coalition, its secrecy protected by the exterior being totally unmodified, and Vetus-system perception inhibition magic fields set up around the locale that would deter mundanes not in the know.

"Wait, scanners just detected something. …Uh-oh."

"Did you find her?" Kirika asked.

"No" the technician replied. "But a Witch just manifested in the industrial sector."

**Witch's Domain**

Sayaka kneeled, panting for breath as she gripped her sword. In this bizarre realm, where everyone was in silhouettes & shadows, and the sky was white with shifting light-grey symbols, the Witch knelt in a praying position at the base of a red statue of sorts. The Witch's Familiars, long tentacles tipped by dragon/snake heads with mouths full of sharp fangs, wavered through the air between her and the Witch. In her emotionally distraught state, Sayaka was not fighting at her best; already, several tears marred her costume, while wounds bled here & there.

She gritted her teeth, gripped her sword, and charged again. Again the snake-like Familiars rose to block her and attack, but she hacked her way through them, ignoring the hits they dealt as she rushed at the Witch. She neared the Witch, sword raised to decapitate it, but a thick tree branch suddenly shot out from the Witch's back, slamming into Sayaka and sending her flying back. The Familiars struck at her as she fell, and she barely managed to regain enough control to land on her feet.

Then the snake-like beings attacked her en masse from several directions, overwhelming her defenses; she cried out in surprise and pain as she was tossed about by their tackles that hit like heavy punches. They watched and waited as she weakly struggled to her feet, panting. She gazed up at them as they reared back, preparing to hit her from every direction at once… and her grip on her sword loosened.

'This is it…' she thought. 'I can't win like this. I'm not good enough. …What does it matter? I'm already dead anyway.' She closed her eyes and waited. 'Sorry, Madoka… I did my best…'

The Familiars rushed in, striking with fangs bared… and a burst of power erupted, blowing them all away. A blur of motion shot out, stopping outside their range. Sayaka, eyes still closed, could feel that she was being held by someone, bridal-style; their hands and body felt so warm. She slowly opened her eyes. A tight black shirt, a grayish-blue short-sleeved jacket, grey pants that reached down to gleaming silver boots, a waist-length cape that was the same color as hers, a kind smile directed at her, and… dark-grey hair with silvery-grey eyes. Her eyes widened.

"K… Kyō…suke…?"

"I'm sorry it took me so long, Sayaka" he said. "Between sorting through my feelings, making my decision, and tracking Kyubey down…"

It was then she noticed the silver diamond-shaped jewel in the center of his forehead. "A Soul Gem…" she breathed out. "Y-You've…"

"Yeah. Kyubey said that, in all the millennia his people have been on Earth, there have only been 19 _Puer Magi_. …I'm number 20."

"…Why? Why go this far?"

"For you. You've always been there for me, Sayaka – every step of the way, ever since we were little kids. It's time I return the favor, and make up for being too thick-headed to realize you were in love with me… and too oblivious to my own emotions to realize I'd come to reciprocate."

She gasped, as he gently set her down on her feet.

"Kyubey told me how your wish was to be strong enough to protect me. Well… my wish…" He concentrated his newfound magical power, and a pair of armored gauntlets appeared over his hands and forearms. "…was to be strong enough to protect you!" He pounded his armored fists together, and a burst of electrical magic – his elemental conversion affinity – coursed over them. "Let's do this, Sayaka!"

Sayaka's expression was tears of joy and a big, radiant smile. She wiped her eyes, and then nodded. "Right!" she said, summoning two new swords from within her cape.

The two charged, side by side. Several snake Familiars appeared, only for Sayaka's swords to cut them down. A larger, thicker one went for her, but Kyōsuke hit it with a punch from one of his gauntlets that struck with such force, the Familiar practically exploded. He held his right gauntlet out with fist clenched, and something unfolded from a small hatch on the top at the wrist: a blaster, which he opened up with on autofire, gunning down several more Familiars.

Sayaka led the charge, her blades hacking through Familiars in her path, with Kyōsuke following right behind and giving her covering fire. Happiness and courage flowed through her, giving her strength and will like she'd never felt before. As they neared the Witch, Kyōsuke pointed his left gauntlet and fired a small device that exploded on impact with the tree-branch sent at them, the launched grenade violently fragmenting the magically-generated wood. Sayaka rushed in, a swing of her sword decapitating the Witch, and the eldritch being's body transformed into a shifting amorphous black blob, and several more Familiars emerged from it to try and stop her. Kyōsuke power-punched a few away, giving Sayaka leeway to slice the rest with her swords.

Kyōsuke's gauntlets surged with power as he dealt three crushing blows to the Witch, each of them strong enough to fracture the ground beneath it. Then, Sayaka channeled magical energy into her blade, and with a war-cry she brought it down, bisecting the shadowy being and splitting the ground. The Witch dissolved rapidly into nothingness. Seconds later, the Witch's Domain ceased to exist as well, returning the duo to the normal realm. The two stood there, panting lightly, as Sayaka picked up and pocketed the Grief Seed. Then, she lunged at Kyōsuke, throwing her arms around his neck and upper back as she kissed him passionately. She heard as he dispelled his gauntlets, and then felt as his arms wrapped around her body.

They pulled away just as reinforcements arrived in the form of Homura and Kyōko. Homura's eyes widened in shock as she noticed Kyōsuke's mana-forged outfit and the Soul Gem in the center of his forehead.

"N-No way…" she murmured. "This… This has never happened…"

"A magical _boy_…" Kyōko said. "Well, I'll be damned. And it's the guy she's got the hots for, at that."

"We should… probably get back to the others" Sayaka said.

"Yeah," Kyōsuke replied, "and I've got a loooot of explaining to do with my parents. …Eh, it'll work out."

"…Homura, you're staring at his chest" Kyōko whispered. "His… tight-shirt-covered, slender, lean-muscled chest…"

"So are you" the other girl replied. "And you're also staring at Sayaka's neckline, exposed tummy, and legs, too."

"You mean like I've seen you do to Madoka and Mami?"

"…Touché."

Sayaka, meanwhile, remained oblivious to her comrades' ogling, snuggled up against Kyōsuke with eyes closed and a big smile. Maybe being a _Puella Magi _wasn't such a big curse after all…

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Next Time: **A few of the Dark Voice's higher-ranking underlings make appearances, and a big, terrible truth is revealed.

I've received a few complaints that the story is – in short terms – not grimdark enough. Well, I've recently added to the outline an entirely new storyline for Book 23 (with _Mass Effect 3 _and _Halo 4 _becoming Books 24 & 25, respectively), and it's gonna be pretty dark. I've also got a couple new villains in the works. So stay tuned.


	5. Homura

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Next Day – 3:15 PM**

Word about the nature of Soul Gems and about Kyōsuke's magical awakening had spread very quickly through the ranks; already the boy was being scheduled for training, while Kyubey's popularity had dropped like it had a weight strapped to it. The TSAB and Master Yen-Sid had been contacted to try and find a way to deal with the Soul Gem issue. Fortunately, Sayaka didn't really care anymore now that she'd gotten the boy of her dreams out of the whole deal; the two were spending nearly every moment together, acting like lovebirds to the point that a few of the more 'cynical' DDF members were starting to crack jokes about their teeth starting to rot from the sugary sweetness whenever they were too close to the couple. Kyōsuke's parents had been shocked but ultimately understanding and supportive of their son's new role; they also responded to his hooking up with Sayaka with "Well, it's about time". Kyōko hung out with the couple a fair amount as well, and they seemed happy to have her around.

Right now, Homura sat on a grassy hill overlooking part of the city; seated with her were Mami, Sonic, and Legion. Homura's mind drifted to the possibilities opened up by the new feature installed into her arm-mounted buckler by TSAB personnel: the ability to project a super-powerful magical energy shield, the metal portion in the center and projecting a flat-plane translucent purplish shield, with adjustable size up to six feet in diameter, capable of withstanding anything less than an S-rank attack. This could be a tremendous help in future fights.

"It's still hard to believe…" Mami said softly, staring at her Soul Gem. "That this is… me."

"I can't believe that little bastard's been tricking girls like you for centuries now" Sonic said. "That's just plain low."

"We can understand the logic behind the modification" Legion said. "It does provide the advantages that Entity-Kyubey described, which are valuable in combat situations. However, the fact that it was done without the knowledge or consent of the 'benefitting' parties is reprehensible; we cannot condone such duplicity on a matter of such importance."

Homura sighed, reaching up to flip her hair.

"Why do you do that so often?" Mami asked. "Trying to be dramatic?"

"Actually," Homura confessed, looking ever-so-slightly embarrassed, "I'm… still not completely used to having my hair loose. For years I kept it in two big braids; I've only had it loose for the past few months."

After a few seconds, Mami smiled. "I think you'd look cute in braids."

A light blush appeared on Homura's cheeks.

"Welp," Sonic got up and stretched, "I think it's time for my patrol."

"Shepard-Commander requested our assistance earlier" Legion said. "We must depart as well."

"I guess I'll head out, too" Mami said. "Are you coming, Homura-san?"

"I've already fulfilled my patrol quota for the day" the black-haired girl replied. "I have a mandatory resting period; might as well use it. I'll be at my apartment; just come there if you need me."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Homura's Apartment (a.k.a. "The Homu-Home", courtesy of Junko)**

**3:45 PM**

Homura sat on the couch, controller in hand, her focus on the TV screen. Seeing as how she was alone, she'd taken the opportunity to continue her playthrough of one of her old favorites. After she'd started her loops, back before she lost her innocence, she'd made sure to make it so all her games, systems, and save data made the trip back with her. One of the few remainders of the 'old her' were some of her old favorite games, and she did her best to hide her enjoyment of them; it would be odd, in her eyes, for an 'ice-cold stoic' to be known to enjoy cutesy games like Kirby or what she was playing right now. She guided her 98-strong horde through the cave, jumping down the hole into the next sublevel.

Madoka passed through the teleporter set up between her house and Homura's. For reasons she couldn't fully understand, she'd come to greatly enjoy the quiet girl's company. As she made her way down the short hallway and towards the main room, she heard various little noises – it sounded like Homura was playing a video game. Curious, she opened the door and walked in.

"Hey, Homura-chan, what're you…" She let out a little happy-gasp as she instantly recognized the little multi-colored things onscreen. "Pikmin~!" she squealed.

Homura found herself blushing a little bit (she'd found herself doing that an unusually frequent amount of times lately) at being caught playing something so 'childish', but at least Madoka apparently enjoyed the game as well. The pinkette came over, sitting next to Homura on the couch.

"Which cave is this?" she asked.

"The… The 'Subterranean Complex'" Homura replied. "The one with the metal spider with a machine gun for a boss."

"Oh, the Man-At-Legs; I know what you're talking about. …Have you been to the Submerged Castle yet?"

"Not in this playthrough, but yes. So yes, I remember…" she shuddered "the Waterwraith."

Madoka nodded, a serious look on her face. "The most paranoia-inducing video game boss I've ever known".

The two hung out as Homura finished the dungeon, using a horde of 30 Yellow Pikmin to slay the Man-At-Legs with only four lost. When the in-game 'day' finished, she turned the console off, and less than a minute later Mami, Kyōko, Sayaka, and Kyōsuke showed up.

"Nice place" Kyōko said appreciatively as she looked around.

The newcomers stared at how the white walls and ceilings had grey and black clockwork gears slowly spinning on them. There was a decoration on the ceiling made of clockwork, and along one wall was a row of candlesticks and pillars.

"Holograms" Homura explained. "Powered and maintained by magic. I can change them at will; the décor responds to my thoughts and memories. I've kept it like this for a while, though."

"It's sort of… dreary" Sayaka said. "The big open space and lack of color makes it feel kind of… lonely."

"Yes…" Homura replied softly, the emotion just barely detectable in her voice. Madoka laid a hand on her shoulder.

Suddenly, all of them sensed the familiar pulse of energy that signaled a Witch's emergence, and only a little less than a kilometer away. However, before they could even transform, they heard a telepathic message.

"_Don't worry_" Aqua 'said'. "_Hinata, Subaru, and I will handle this one. …This is going to be my first time fighting an actual Witch here, now that I think about it._"

"_Be careful_" Homura 'replied'.

"_Don't worry. I didn't survive 11 years in the Realm Of Darkness by being careless. Aqua out._"

_-25 Minutes Later_-

Homura sighed as she leaned back against her seat on one of the couches; somehow, a pretty big group of people had all ended up in her apartment. It had started with Sayaka's mother and Madoka's parents coming over, moved on to Teana stopping by, and snowballed from there. Now, in addition to the above and the original five visitors, there was also Sora, Naruto, Rock Lee, Sonic, Shepard, Tali, Garrus, Legion, Twilight, Pinkie, Cadence, and the six kids of Theta Team. Everyone was mingling, some using the comfortable chairs that Twilight had conjured, giving Homura's dreary apartment a sense of life. Homura didn't even bother asking where the hell Pinkie had pulled that big plate of cookies from… not that she was complaining, she thought as she munched on an oatmeal raisin cookie.

"So then Applejack says, 'Forget you, ah can eat all these apples!' So she grabs a couple and…"

Homura tuned out Pinkie's story as Junko sat down next to her. "You feeling alright, dear?" the woman asked.

"…I'm not used to crowds" Homura confessed.

"You can relax, Homura-chan. You're among friends."

"Right. Friends…"

"…Madoka is… important to you, isn't she?"

Homura looked up at her, shock in her eyes, to see the woman smiling at her. She then nodded.

"Yes… More than you or even she knows…"

The quiet festivities were suddenly interrupted as the door was slammed open, and in walked Aqua, Hinata, and Subaru. They looked fine physically, only a few wrinkles and tiny tears in their clothes to show they'd just been in battle, but Aqua looked shaken. Everyone went quiet, paying attention to her.

"I…" she started. "When I fought the Witch… when I killed it… the burst of energy when it died… I recognized it. And I l-looked through the memory footage that's still being compiled, and felt it every time. They… They're Heartless. The Witches are Heartless!"

Everyone was shocked silent.

"You're sure of this, Aqua?" Sora asked.

"I am, Sora. Despite your skill, you're still kinda new at this. But I spent over a decade surviving against Heartless in the Realm of Darkness. I know what they 'feel' like. There's no doubt about it: Witches are a type of Heartless."

"…But…" Kyōko said, a look of horror slowly dawning on her face. "Wait… O-Our Soul Gems are our Hearts, right? And… K-Kyubey is always tellin' us how we have to use Grief Seeds to… keep that dirt-shadow-corruption stuff from… s-spreading… Oh… O-Oh, God… Oh God, please no, don't tell me that's…"

"It is."

The group turned to Homura, who sat with a hint of sadness in her eyes.

"When the last group I was with learned the truth…" she said, "one of them went mad and killed the others."

"W-What truth?" Mami squeaked out.

"I shouldn't…"

"Homura-chan, please" Madoka said. "Please… tell us everything."

Unable to refuse a request from Madoka, Homura took a deep breath, and began to speak.

"The Soul Gem… our Heart, our soul… constantly accumulates corruption as a result of no longer being housed within our bodies. The rate of the corruption's spread increases with large uses of magic, or with negative emotions like loneliness and despair. And… when a Soul Gem reaches total, 100% corruption, it shatters… and transforms into a Grief Seed. The _Puella Magi_'s Heart is consumed by Darkness, and as their body dies they are reborn as… as a Witch. …Every Witch we've ever fought, with the exception of Matured Familiars, was once a _Puella Magi_, who either succumbed to despair and Darkness, or simply couldn't acquire enough Grief Seeds to keep their Soul Gem pure. Every _Puella Magi_ is cursed with that eventual fate; the only way to avoid it is to be killed before it can happen. We all become… the very abominations we fight."

There was complete, horrified silence for several seconds, broken only at the beginning by the faint rustle of Pinkie's mane & tail going flat and limp. The quiet was broken by gasps for breath that steadily grew increasingly frantic. Sayaka sat, hunched over, eyes wide with pupils shrunken, hyperventilating as a full-blown emotional-overload-induced panic attack hit her. She started struggling to breathe, her whole body trembling violently. Kyōsuke immediately pulled her into a close hug, holding her tight, and slowly her breathing stabilized, as tears started to fall from her eyes.

"That's…" Mami whimpered, tears of heartbreak and horror building in her eyes. "That can't be… How could… Why… I… I'm…"

"…What do Kyubey and his people stand to gain from this, Akemi?" Garrus asked. "Do you know?"

"Yes, I do know" Homura replied. "Kyubey is short for 'In**cuba**tor'; that's what his people call themselves. As he said yesterday, his people do not possess emotions, and consider most other sapient races to be inherently insane because they do. However, they have found a way to harness and harvest the magical energy created and given off by strong emotions – particularly, the transition from hope to despair, and the resulting transformation into a Witch, gives off a very large amount of this energy that the Incubators then snatch up. In addition, they also gain smaller amounts of this energy by absorbing filled-to-capacity Grief Seeds."

"What are they using this energy for?" Sora asked.

"To combat entropy, and attempt to stave off the heat-death of the universe."

"That's insane!" Kyōsuke said. "Even if that were possible, the universe's heat-death is an incomprehensibly large amount of time away – like, I read it was about 10-to-the-hundredth-power years in the future! Why would they even care about something that astronomically far away in a temporal sense? And even then, we're not 100% sure that's how it'll happen!"

"Yeah," Laicixa cut in, "there's that 'Big Rip' theory that's gaining ground, that says that the universe's expansion will continuously accelerate until everything is torn apart, right down to atoms. And even _that_ is around 50 billion years away, by estimates!"

"I don't know why they're so sure of their chosen outcome," Homura said, "but I believe their lack of emotion explains why they 'care' about something so astronomically far in the future. They see it from a pure logic point of view. …How they came upon that particular ridiculous logic, I have no idea."

"This is insane…" Naruto said, fists clenched. "This is just completely fucking insane."

"…H-How do you know all this, Homura-san?" Sayaka asked. "I mean, all of the things you know. And… how did you know about us even before we'd properly met?"

"Homura-chan…" Madoka said. "Why does it feel like… like we've met before?"

Homura looked a bit shaken, like Madoka's question had hit home. She started looking around, as if trying to locate an escape. Madoka came forward and placed a hand on Homura's shoulder, drawing her attention and giving her a pleading look. Homura took a slightly ragged breath, and nodded.

"You all know how I can stop time, right?" she said. "I can also… travel through it. I'm not from this timeline."

A few people gasped.

(MUSIC – _Puella Magi Madoka Magica _OST 2 – "_Inevitabilis_")

Homura spoke with her head bowed to hide her face. Behind her, the room responded to her mental command, and a holoscreen appeared, showing a mousy-looking girl in a school uniform, her long black hair in two big braids, red-framed glasses over her eyes, fidgeting before a classroom of kids. The local girls felt surprise as they realized they were looking at Homura in the 'past'.

"I was born with a congenitally weak heart" Homura said. "As a result, I spent a large amount of my life in a hospital. My parents both died when I was seven. I had no friends or family growing up. Eventually, my body grew strong enough for me to be discharged from the hospital, and I transferred to Mitakihara High. I was scared, and lonely, and cripplingly shy. But… one girl went out of her way to guide me, to protect me, to become my first ever friend."

The image changed to show a girl that was unmistakably Madoka smiling and talking with the meek Homura of the past.

"Madoka was the first person to ever reach out to me, to make me feel like I was worth something. After she and Mami-san saved me from a Witch, I got pulled into their world. I didn't become a _Puella Magi_; I was the tagalong for those two. We had fun together, enjoyed each other's company, became close friends. Then… Walpurgis came. The most powerful of the Witches… Mami-san and Madoka defeated her, but… the cost was too high."

The image showed Mami and Madoka's broken bodies lying in the shallow water that flooded the ruins of Mitakihara. The Homura of the past was crying over Madoka's lifeless form.

"And that's when Kyubey made his offer to me, and…"

The ensuing 'footage' had audio, albeit with a slight echo like telepathy, so they all heard the desperation in past-Homura's voice:

"_I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. Instead of her always having to protect me, I want to be able to protect her!_"

The audio cut out again, showing in silence Homura's Contract's forging, and then a flash of violet light and swirling clocks as time rewound.

"When I woke up, I was lying in my hospital bed, the morning I was due to be discharged and transfer to Mitakihara High, and my Soul Gem was in my hand. I'd gone back in time. Mami-san, Madoka, and I worked together, a three-person team of _Puellae Magi_, fighting Witches and saving the day. When Walpurgis finally came, though, Mami-san died again. Madoka and I managed to bring Walpurgis down, but…"

The screen, having shown snippets of the three girls fighting together, not showed Madoka laying in the shallow water, gasping in pain, her body seizing upwards every few seconds as a horrified Homura looked on. Then, it showed Madoka's Soul Gem, fully corrupted, shattering… and the shattered pieces freezing in place and then reversing, reforming into a Grief Seed. Past-Madoka's body went limp and dead, while the massive release of black energy soared upward, forming into a gigantic shadowy black being as big as a Reaper, the earth starting to come apart beneath it as its top pierced the clouds.

"Kriemhild Gretchen…" Homura said. "Madoka's Witch. In terms you coalition people would understand, her power level was equal to the initial, incomplete first form of the _Jūbi_."

Naruto's eyes widened a bit; within him, Kurama growled under his breath. '_**There's no way the humans of this world would have been able to stop that**_' he thought.

"That was when I knew Kyubey had deceived all of us" Homura continued. "I went 'back' again, and tried to explain everything to the others…" The screen silently showed the _Puella_ group, which this time included Sayaka; the blue-haired girl looked angry, shouting at Homura.

"None of you believed me. That is, until…"

The memory playback showed Sayaka's Soul Gem shattering into a Grief Seed, and then images of the other girls' fight against her Witch form, ending with Homura dealing the final blow. Then, as the girls mourned what had just happened, the sound of the playback kicked in just as golden ribbons wrapped around Past-Homura, restraining her, and a bolt of golden magic impacted Past-Kyōko's Soul Gem, killing her instantly. It switched perspective to Past-Mami, holding her rifle, tears streaming down her face as she pointed the weapon at Homura.

"_If our fate is to become Witches,_" she sobbed out, utterly broken, "_then our only option is to die! You two… and me… I won't let this happen! I'm so sorry! We have to die!-!_"

A bolt of pink light struck Past-Mami's Soul Gem, and she keeled over dead. The playback's audio went silent again as it showed Past-Madoka dropping her bow and then curling up into a ball, crying her eyes out.

"We took on Walpurgis, just the two of us" Homura replied. "We won… but the inevitable came to pass."

It showed Past-Madoka and Past-Homura, lying together in the water, their Soul Gems near-totally corrupted. It then showed as Madoka touched a Grief Seed to Homura's Gem, purifying it despite the other girl's tearful protests.

"She made me promise…"

"_Homura-chan… You can travel through time, right? I… I want you to go back, back to before all this happened, and stop the stupid me of back then from falling for Kyubey's trap. Please…_"

"_I promise! I promise I'll save you, Madoka!_"

"_You finally… called me by my first name. I'm so happy, Homura…_"

"We… s-said goodbye…"

Past-Madoka pulled Past-Homura down into a first and last kiss, which was interrupted as the pink-haired girl's body seized, her Soul Gem flashing black.

"_One last favor…_" her hand rose, shakily holding her slowly-transforming Soul Gem up. "_I don't want… to become a monster…_"

"A-And…" Homura's voice broke. "I… I h-had to… had t-to…"

The audio cut out, but it showed as Past-Homura pointed a pistol at Past-Madoka's Soul Gem, letting out a wail of absolute heartbroken misery as she pulled the trigger, and the screen went black.

Homura's body shook as a sob echoed through the quiet room. "A-After that… I stopped relying on anyone else. I ridded myself of all the old, weak parts of myself. I c-couldn't depend on anyone but myself. I couldn't save the others. A-All that matters… is saving Madoka. …Timeline Four is where Kriemhild Gretchen's power level peaked, to the point of not being stronger in succeeding timelines; she's as strong as the _Jūbi_'s true, perfect form, capable of destroying all complex life on the entire planet within 10 days' time. Kyubey didn't care; he told me that once his people reach their planetary energy quota, they don't give a damn what happens to that planet or its people afterward. I… T-This is my eighth loop. I've… I've failed to save her seven times! Seven times I've had to watch my Madoka die or become a planet-destroying monster! …I don't care what it takes. Even if I'm stuck in this horrible cycle for hundreds, thousands, millions of years, I won't stop. I _can't_ stop. If I ever gave up… I'd probably become a Witch faster than you could blink. Saving her is the only purpose I have to keep me going. It's all I can do… It's all I have left."

She let out a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry… I must weird you guys out now…"

She then heard a quiet sob. Homura looked up, and saw Madoka looking at her with tears in her eyes. And she wasn't the only one; the few people who weren't crying had stony, mournful expressions, a mixture of sorrow for Homura and quiet rage at the Incubators.

"That certainly explains a few things."

Everyone startled, and then felt deep anger as they saw Kyubey sitting on one of the far tables. Several of them drew their weapons.

"Explains what?" Sonic asked, his tone one of tranquil fury.

"Time-traveler Akemi Homura… By turning back time and changing past events, you have traversed numerous different timelines, and relived this past month or so over and over, seeking the outcome you desire. Your existence has at last answered at least one great mystery: Why is Kaname Madoka's potential as a magical girl so abnormally vast? Now, at last, I have a theory that explains it. You see, a _Puella Magi_'s potential is based on the weight of the karmic destiny she bears. I could've understood if she had been a queen or savior of a country; Joan of Arc and Cleopatra were remarkably powerful _Puellae Magi_. But Madoka was living an ordinary life, so I couldn't understand why so many threads of fate should all be gathered so tightly around her.

"But now I think… Say, Homura… Could it be that Madoka has been made into such a wondrously powerful _Puella Magi _because you kept turning back time?"

Homura's eyes went wide, a small gasp escaping her.

"I thought so. You were the cause of it. Or to be more precise, a side effect of your magic was the cause of it. …All this time reversal you did was all for one purpose, wasn't it? To save Kaname Madoka? By turning back time over and over for the same purpose and reason, you inadvertently caused multiple timelines to converge together, and centered them all on the existence of Madoka. If Madoka's threads of fate from each of those separate timelines all ended up linking to the Madoka of this current timeline, it would explain why her magical potential appears to impossibly huge. All that karmic destiny you've set spinning in all those different timelines eventually attached to her. After all, she was the main culprit of every event.

"Well done, Homura. You've raised Madoka to be the most powerful Witch ever."

Homura trembled, barely breathing, as it felt like the world had just crashed down on her.

'It's… my fault…?'

"You…" Naruto growled. "You deceive and condemn millions of innocent children to despair and becoming monsters, and then dare to talk to us about it like nothing's wrong?"

"You call it deception, but we never tell untruths, and they never ask for the full details."

"Because you word it so they don't even know they _should_ ask! I'll bet your people cultivated the modern image of magical girls here to make it easier for your victims to trust you!"

"I do not understand why you humans consider the omission of information as a form of duplicity."

"So that's it?" Junko Kaname asked. "You just… cause the deaths of entire worlds just because you see it as 'logical'?"

"It is logical. In the 90,000 years we have been active in this endeavor, we have already gathered enough energy to prolong the universe's life by 115,750 years. Those species have made a noble sacrifice for the good of the universe as a whole."

"And how many species have you 'sacrificed' already?" Shepard asked, using a tone not heard since Project Overlord. "How many sapient races have been rendered extinct as a result of your people's actions?"

"Four hundred and nineteen."

"_Keelah_…" Tali muttered, horrified.

"It is regrettable, but necessary; any hypothetical contributions they could have made to the galactic community are outweighed by their deaths' prolonging of the universe. It is the pure and simple logical choice, as is our manipulation of their cultural and technological development to render easier the recruiting and harvesting of resources. We are the universe's salvation through destruc-"

***BANG!***

Kyubey exploded. Everyone jumped from the sudden noise of the firing of an M98 Widow, looking around, and soon spotting the culprit - body trembling slightly, head-flaps forming a yet-unseen configuration, and photoreceptor bearing a reddish tint to its blue light. Despite the being's infancy in terms of possession of emotion, one thing was abundantly clear:

Legion was _furious_.

"Unacceptable methods" the Geth stated. "Unforgivable transgressions. The ends do not at all justify the means in this situation. Entities designate 'Incubators' violate the right to self-determinate of targeted species, strip sapient races of their right to walk their own path, forcefully manipulate target species' developments to their detriment, steal their target races' futures for their own goals, condemn species to extinction for no true worthy purpose. They are no better than the Reapers."

"On that, we are in agreement" Garrus said.

"_I see that you lot cannot be reasoned with_" Kyubey's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "_Ah, well. I will continue my patrol of the city. Madoka, when you are ready to give your life to save the universe, come find me._"

The telepathic transmission was ended, plunging the room into silence as everybody tried to process all that had just happened.

"It's all… my fault?" Homura whimpered, on her knees on the floor with head bowed, tears falling. "I've been trying… so hard to save her, but… I've j-just been making things worse? I never wanted… I just w-wanted to…"

Cadence, having form-shifted to human, placed a comforting hand on Homura's shoulder, but the girl's despair was absolute, such that she didn't notice Laicixa summoning and using her Keyblade to quickly purify her Soul Gem, which had begun darkening at an increased pace; Cadence then cast one of her own spells on the Gem, which would halt its encroaching corruption for a little while.

"I'm going to contact my sisters," the Princess of Harmony said, "and see if they might have any insights into all this."

"We… We should probably ask Master Yen-Sid for help, too" Aqua said.

"We need to let everyone know," Sonic said, "so we can have everyone working round-the-clock to find a solution."

Madoka knelt down in front of Homura, pressing her forehead against the other girl's. She gently grabbed Homura's Soul Gem, and then with the same hand grasped Homura's hand, holding it with the Gem in-between. She closed her eyes, and felt as Homura very, very slowly calmed down. As this happened, however, Madoka 'felt' the streams of temporal magic linked to Homura's power. Curious, she reached out with her mind and 'touched' them.

And a miracle happened.

Homura's Soul Gem flared bright purple, and Madoka let out a surprised cry as her own body flashed pink for the briefest of instants. A split-second later, the other three girls' bodies briefly flashed their respective colors. As one the girls (already on the floor on their knees) hunched over, holding their heads between their hands, eyes squeezed shut as information poured in.

"M-Madoka?" Homura asked weakly, looking at the girl sitting in front of her.

Slowly, the pink-haired girl raised her head, looking back at her with tears filling her eyes. "Homura…" she whispered.

She then lunged forward, grabbing Homura in a tight hug.

"I remember…" Madoka whimpered. "My other selves' memories… the other timelines, along with this one… meeting you w-when you were shy and cute, rescuing you from that Witch, o-our times together… watching everyone die half a dozen times… I remember all of it! I… I remember you." She pulled back just a little, enough to look Homura in the eyes with a small, tearful smile, as she reached a hand up and softly caressed her face. "Homura…"

"…E-Everything?" Homura asked. "You remember… everything? From… a-all of the timelines?"

"Well, not every single waking detail of my lives; just everything that happened differently from this timeline up to now, as well as things that chronologically haven't happened 'yet'. Which is quite a lot, to be sure. …I'm so sorry you've suffered so much on my account, Homura."

Meanwhile, a little ways away, Sayaka and Kyōko raised their heads at the same time, their other-timeline memories having finished 'downloading' into their brains. They looked at each other, teared up, and then practically leapt into each other's arms, hugging each other like the world was going to end, as they remembered bonding with each other only to witness each other's deaths multiple times across the timelines.

Homura was still in shock. The memories of all the incarnations of Madoka she'd known, all together in one mind… She then noticed movement out of the corner of her eyes, and turned to look just in time for Mami to come up and hug her tightly.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered/whimpered. "I'm so sorry… All the t-things I've said and done to you the past few timelines, thinking you were an enemy…"

Sayaka and Kyōko came over, soon turning it into a five-person group hug.

"T-Tried to kill you all…" Mami whimpered. "I… I _murdered_ Kyōko…"

"You were trying to protect us even then" Kyōko replied. "You were trying to save us from becoming Witches any way you could."

"I was insane… M-My mind couldn't handle the truth… Oh God, girls, I'm so sorry! I love you all so much, and yet… I…"

"I forgive you" Kyōko said.

"So do I" Madoka said.

Sayaka and Homura nodded.

"I don't deserve to have friends like you girls" Mami said with a tearful smile.

"We don't believe that" Madoka replied. "You're one of us. The bonds between us… transcend time and space."

Mami nodded. "Literally, it seems" she said with a tiny smile. "…I'm so sorry about everything, Homuhomu."

Homura led out a shuddering breath. "You… You shouldn't call me that. That's one of the nicknames you gave to the old me, who was… weak and clumsy and… innocent and pure. That part of me died when I had to… grant Madoka mercy in the third timeline."

Mami smiled down at her. "No. No, it didn't. It's just been buried under all that pain you're carrying. Madoka and I can still see it, even right now."

Then, Mami conjured two nimble golden magical ribbons that weaved through a startled Homura's hair, quickly and precisely braiding it; the ribbons then traveled down to the ends of the braids, forming ribbons to hold the hair in place.

"See?" Mami said. "Moémura's still here. This part of you has just been hiding, deep in your Heart, curled up in a ball of pain. Beneath the cold exterior you've worked so hard to build up, deep within all the emotions and thoughts you've tried to suppress and bury to numb yourself to the pain… deep down you're still the shy, awkward sweetheart we first knew. You've lost a lot of your innocence and such, but you're still our Homu."

The combination of Mami & Madoka's warm smiles, and having her hair in the old style, acted as triggers for emotions long hidden. Homura's eyes watered, and she buried her face in the crook of Mami's neck, trying desperately not to let herself release and cry out all her pain.

"You don't have to hold it in, Homura" Madoka said.

"Yes, I do" Homura replied, now speaking in her old, "Moémura" vocal tone. "This c-could still go all wrong. We could still fail to stop Kyubey forcing you into a C-Contract. We could still fail to beat Walpurgis. And then this – all of this – would have been for nothing… again. I can't allow myself to break down until I'm completely, totally sure that it's all over. And… after s-so many failures, I can't bring myself to hope this time will turn out any different. It never does…"

"We'll make sure it does this time" Sora said.

"We'll put a stop to this whole mess once and for all" Shepard said.

"We'll break the chains of cruel fate" Naruto said.

"And we'll fry anything that tries to stop us" Teana said.

"You girls have friends in each other and in us" Twilight said. "And friendship can give rise to the most powerful magic there is."

"We'll fight with you, to help secure your future" Sonic said.

"And we'll support you girls…" Kirika Miki said as she knelt down by them.

"…every step of the way" Junko Kaname joined in.

"The Incubators had better watch out," Kyōsuke said, "because we're going to bring their scheme crashing down around them."

"Rest assured, Friend-Homura" Legion said. "We will prevail."

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: An unexpected enemy appearance, and Madoka's plan


	6. Wish

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Right Outside Homura's Apartment**

**4:40 PM - 10 Minutes After End Of Previous Chapter**

The sizable group filed out into the street, a dimension-shift barrier over the area to ensure privacy (and so Tali, Garrus, Legion, Sonic, Twilight, Pinkie, and Cadence could be out in the open).

"You girls know that I can't really act like my old self that much, right?" Homura asked the other _Puellae_ (and Madoka), her hair now hanging loose again and talking in her 'usual' tone of voice. "I've gotten used to being serious and quiet so much, especially in battle; trying to let those other parts of me stay on the surface all the time could really cause problems. Besides, I've been doing this for so long that it's gone from being a façade to being part of my real personality, of who I really am now."

"I understand" Madoka replied. "At least, though, you can let yourself be all of yourself, not just the stoic serious parts, when you're not in battle or something else serious, when you're with us."

"…Okay" she made a little smile.

"Do not worry, Akemi-san" Lee said. "We will win this. We should probably step up your speed training. Do you feel ready to do so?"

Homura nodded.

"Excellent! We shall begin adding leg weights to the itinerary."

"Just don't go overboard with her, Bushy Brow" Naruto said. "She can't fight if she's in traction."

"Well, this is quite the gathering we have here!"

(MUSIC – _Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep _OST - "Drops of Poison")

Everyone startled a little, looking around for and soon finding the source of the voice: a boy who looked and sounded just like Sora but with black hair and gold eyes, wearing a black and red outfit, lounging atop a nearby streetlight.

"Vanitas…" Aqua growled, summoning the Master Keeper. "I'd almost forgotten the Dark Voice revived you."

"Aw, you forgot me? That hurts me, Aqua, really."

"I'd heard about you" Sora said. "Why do you look like me if you're Ventus' Darkness?"

"When Master Xehanort created me, he fractured Ven's Heart in the process. He took the kid to Destiny Islands to die in peace. You had just been born, but your Heart was already strong enough to reach out to his and donate a piece of itself to repair his. I was only recently created then, so my physical form still hadn't fully settled. That link forged between your Heart and Ventus' affected me as well, giving me your body and voice. Of course, Xehanort's perfected that spell since then, so now it doesn't run the risk of damaging the Heart of the person when their Darkness is extracted." He grinned. "Which means we can sic someone's Darkness on them and watch them fight right away."

"What are you doing here?" Laicixa said with a scowl.

"Just hangin' out. Man, there are some _crazy_ Heartless in this world. Xehanort's Heartless has already gained control of a couple of them, and rumor has it that a really damn big one is coming not too long from now. I wanna see how much chaos that thing causes!"

"Don't get your hopes up" Madoka said. "When Walpurgis comes, we're going to destroy it once and for all."

"Sure you will, kid."

"Did you come to fight us?" Twilight asked.

"Nah. I don't feel like taking on all of you right now. I've got other things planned. Hmm… But maybe I could give you guys something to do."

Several people tensed, weapons ready.

"You see, folks…" Vanitas said as he stood up, balancing on the streetlight. "I've been broadening my skill set a little. That spell of Xehanort's, that trick for extracting a person's Heart's Darkness and making it into an Unversed?"

He flash-stepped out of view… and reappeared directly behind Madoka, a savage grin on his face and his evil-looking Keyblade in his hands.

"I can do it, too."

He shoved the Void Gear's tip 'into' Madoka, who cried out. There was no blood, as the weapon wasn't actually piercing her flesh; rather, her body became semitransparent, a glowing pinkish-white point of light sitting in the center of her chest, wreathed by bits of shadowy purplish-black. Vanitas touched the very tip of his weapon against her Heart, and then quickly pulled the weapon out, pulling the Darkness out with it; Madoka's Heart, now forcibly stripped clean of its inherent Darkness, became no longer visible as her body became opaque again, and she collapsed to her knees.

"_Madoka!-!_"

Vanitas flash-stepped away, landing back atop the streetlight, the extracted Darkness swirling around the tip of his Keyblade. Madoka's parents and Homura gathered around the girl, who was on her knees, her body trembling and with cold sweat, gasping for breath like she'd just run a marathon.

"I-I'm okay…" she said weakly, panting. "I feel… weak right now… but I think I'm gonna be okay…"

"Not for long, you're not!" Vanitas shouted. "That may not have hurt you, but this sure as hell will!"

He channeled his own Dark magic into the extracted Darkness, supercharging it with his power. He then pointed his Keyblade high and 'fired' the sphere of Darkness into the air, where it rapidly expanded into a huge, swirling cocoon-sphere of Darkness at least 40 feet across.

"This may be one of the strongest Unversed I've made yet! Have fun, folks!"

He vanished into a Dark Gateway with a laugh. The 'cocoon' of Darkness began to bulge and twist, deep growls coming from within.

(BOSS BATTLE – _Puella Magi Madoka Magica _OST 2 – "_Venari Strigas_")

The shell of Darkness shattered, and a huge creature dropped out, landing hard enough to shake the ground. It was massive, nearly 50 feet tall but hunched over, with a muscular yet disproportionately thin body, two large and muscular arms tipped with clawed hands; from the looks of it, its upper body was bulky enough that it couldn't stand bipedally for more than a handful of seconds at a time. Its hide was black and purple with a few strips of pink, and the Unversed symbol was in the center of its chest. Its eyes glowed yellow, and it had a large mouth full of huge, serrated fangs. Lastly, 'thin' black tendrils hung from its lower torso and waist, looking almost like the skeletal outline of a dress. Homura stifled a gasp; this creature definitely had a few similarities in appearance to Kriemhild Gretchen.

"I'll handle this!" Sora said, racing forward with Keyblade in hand. "You guys keep the ones who can't fight safe!"

"I shall assist you in this fight!" Rock Lee said, taking position beside Sora.

"And so will I!" Twilight joined in.

Sora nodded to the duo, and he & they ran forward. A Dark Barrier, transparent but impassible, formed around them and the monster, summoned by the being (or perhaps by Vanitas) to keep the others from interfering. The massive Unversed let out a deep, loud roar at its three opponents.

"Let's bring this thing down!"

The Unversed slammed one of its claws down at Team Sora, only for the trio to scatter, avoiding the attack. Rock Lee appeared in midair beside the beast's head and lashed out with a _Konoha Dai-Senpū_, the powerful kick knocking the creature's head to the side. A few conjured fireballs from Twilight smashed into the Unversed's body, pushing it back, and then a Strike Raid from Sora hit it in the face. The beast roared in anger, pounding its clawed fists onto the ground and creating black-hued shockwaves that the trio had to jump over. At the right moment, Twilight telekinetically grabbed hold of one of its arms mid-swing for a split-second, causing it to slip, its face smacking into the pavement. Sora quickly rushed in, unleashing a combo of blows on its head.

The massive Unversed lurched back and up, forcing Sora to leap away or else be skewered by a fang. Twilight cast a Light-type _Sagitta Magica_, 47 magenta-colored magical energy-projectiles racing through the air and impacting all along the dark creature's body. Sora fired off a Triple Firaga at the monster's head, the three fireballs exploding to deal concussive force in addition to burning damage, sending the Unversed reeling back. Rock Lee rushed in while the beast was stunned, dealing a flurry of bone-crushing blows to the tough hide of its upper body and arm joints. He finished by kicking off from its upper chest just as it tried to swat him away with a claw.

The Unversed's lower-body-mounted tendrils stirred, rising up like tentacles tipped with stabbing spikes, and shot out at the trio, trying to spear them. Sora surrounded himself with a Reflega shield to deflect the ones that went for him, while Twilight and Lee used rapid-fire teleports and bursts of super-speed, respectively, to dodge the ones that attacked them. Sora threw an 'overcharged' Strike Raid that severed a handful of tendrils, while Twilight conjured and through a few Fire Disks that cut through a few more. Lee rushed in, past the few tendrils remaining, and struck at the beast's legs with powerful blows, damaging them but being forced to retreat to avoid being stomped on before he could deal anything conclusive.

"This thing's just tanking everything we hit it with!" Sora said.

"I believe I may have a technique powerful enough to bring it down" Lee replied. "However, I will need time to prepare, and we also should weaken it a little more, just to be sure."

The monster attacked again, trying to crush the trio with its claws or with the resulting shockwaves. Sora cast Ragnarok, firing a barrage of white magic beams/bolts that curved through the air, impacting the beast in the face. Twilight sent a few more Fire Disks into the Unversed's body, burning into its hide; the unicorn then narrowly dodged the beast's retaliatory strike. Sora rushed in, dealing a few more combos with his Keyblade, finishing with a Thundara spell that shocked and stunned the beast. He and Twilight then appeared directly beneath the stunned monster, gathering power and releasing it upward as a powerful pulse of magic that knocked the creature skyward.

Rock Lee's body flared with green _ki_, the ground buckling beneath him as his skin turned red. "_Hachimon Tonkō: Dairoku Keimon: Kai_!" With the Sixth Gate opened, Lee blitzed forward and up, nailing the monster with a rising kick that sent it even higher. He then flash-stepped straight up, appearing before the creature with flaming fists.

"Take this! _ASA KUJAKU!-!_"

Rock Lee's fists became a flurry of flames, striking so fast that the motion blur rendered them undetectable, dealing several blows per second with each blow alone capable of killing most shinobi, all while wreathed in flames. The monster was soon engulfed in fire, its body brutalized by the bone-shattering blows, as the flames formed the image of a peacock's tail. Lee finished with one last, strongest double blow that sent the monster hurtling down to the ground, crashing to the street below hard enough to make a small crater, the flames still consuming it. He landed a few seconds later, his Inner Gates re-closing, leaving him panting for breath.

The Dark Barrier came down as the Unversed's death throes came to their end and it went still, its body dissolving into black 'mist' that soon faded away. With the area clear, the others walked up, Mami supporting the still-unsteady Madoka.

"That was awesome work, Lee" Naruto said with a thumbs-up.

"Thank you… Naruto-kun…" Lee replied between pants, shakily returning the gesture. "I… do not think I can… do that again for a while, though."

"So now in addition to the Witch-Heartless," Teana said, "we've got Vanitas prowling around. What next?"

"We need to tell the others everything regarding the revelations today" Shepard said. "At the very least, we can have people on the lookout for Kyubey to make sure he doesn't sucker any more innocent girls into his trap."

"I hope you mean we send out orders to shoot the little _bosh'tet_ on sight" Tali replied.

"He can nigh-instantly reform a destroyed body using the surrounding planetary background mana" Homura said. "Killing him only delays him for a short while until he can conjure another body. And… he probably has multiple bodies spread out across the planet."

"What about the Witches?" Subaru asked. "I mean… knowing what they are now…"

"There's really nothing we can do for them" Aqua replied. "They're Heartless; all we can really do is destroy them so their Hearts can be freed."

Teana sighed. "For now, let's go tell Optimus, Col. Holland, and Shipmaster Arum about all this."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Same Day – 6:15 PM**

A team composed of Samus, Homura, Legion, and Golden Tiara (wearing her Agent Gamma armor) approached the coordinates where a Witch's Domain had been detected, over in the industrial district of the city. News about the many things revealed earlier today had spread very quickly; reactions were typically wanting to hug and comfort poor Homura, and wanting to flay Kyubey alive. But the world didn't stop turning just because of a few shocking revelations, and another Witch had apparently manifested. So now, this four-person team had headed out to deal with it.

They soon approached the gateway to the Witch's Realm, a shifting black 'portal' on the side of a wall.

"Warning" Samus' suit's VI reported. "Extensive Phazon deposits detected within. Please ensure radiation shielding is in place."

"More Phazon?" Samus asked. "Damn. You three ready?"

"My suit's radiation-proofing is working perfectly" Golden Tiara said.

"My Bureau-made hazmat shield is online as well" Homura reported.

"This platform is not affected by Phazon radiation" Legion stated.

"Alright… Let's go."

The quartet stepped through the little portal, emerging into a tunnel/passageway of sorts. The walls and ceiling had glowing blue veins of crackling Phazon running along them, casting everything in an eerie blue glow.

(MUSIC: _Metroid Prime _– Phazon Mines (Level 3))

"The infection's at a worse stage than last time" Samus said.

"So we will be fighting another Corrupted Witch…" Homura murmured as she readied an M8 Avenger assault rifle. "Troublesome."

The team started moving down the passageway, weapons trained on every nook & cranny. Soon they encountered a moving puddle of Phazon clinging to the wall. As they came within range, it extended into a protuberance-like being; it looked like an Inglet, the little Ing type that Samus encountered hundreds of on Aether, but made entirely of Phazon, and to Homura's magical senses it also possessed the telltale energy signature of a Witch's Familiar. Samus blasted it with a charged Power Beam shot, destroying it. As they kept moving, they encountered a handful more of these beings, destroying them relatively easily.

Within five minutes, they reached a large, open central chamber that almost looked like an arena. Phazon veins and crystals littered the area, and against the far wall was a tall pillar of rock and crystallized Phazon that formed an elaborate throne at the top. And seated in the throne, looking down at the team, was Dark Samus.

"Her energy signature…" Golden Tiara murmured.

"Yes…" Homura replied. "It feels like a hybrid of her original signature and that of a Witch. She's completely absorbed the Phazon-corrupted Grief Seed she snatched earlier."

"So on top of everything else," Samus said, "now she's got Witch powers too. Just great…"

Dark Samus raised her left hand, and snapped her fingers. In an instant, shadowy beings tainted by Phazon emerged from all around the quartet, surrounding them. The creatures then attacked from all sides at once. The team immediately went into action – Samus' Power Beam and Legion's dual-wielded Predator pistols started picking the Phazon Familiars off with speed and precision, while Golden Tiara threw out pulses and shockwaves of Biotic power that destroyed some of them and left the others stunned for Homura to finish off with her assault rifle.

After about 30 seconds of this, the wave of enemies stopped. Everyone's attention was then drawn to Dark Samus as she pushed off from the throne, slowly floating down to the ground, staring at them. A few crackles of Phazon energy danced across her armor, as her body slowly tensed.

(BOSS MUSIC: _Metroid Prime 3 Corruption _– "Dark Samus Battle")

Then, she let out a 'roar' as an aura of intense dark power erupted around her, shaking the ground and blowing everything around her away, forcing Team Samus back a little. She let out a deep, heavily distorted laugh, and pointed her cannon at her heroic human counterpart. A shotgun burst of Darkness-wreathed Phazon projectiles blasted out at the team.

"Scatter!" Samus ordered.

Everyone did so, Legion's new shields withstanding the few shots that hit it as they all dove out of the way. Dark Samus floated over the ground with considerable speed toward Samus, cannon charging, only to be hit by a Biotic Shockwave from Golden Tiara that knocked her to the side. The human-shaped entity snarled and fired a tracking Phazon Missile at the Corona agent, who set it off at a safe distance with a Warp. Homura stored her Avenger and pulled out a UNSC M739 machinegun, the weapon's 15-rounds-per-second rate of fire allowing it to begin rapidly chipping away at Dark Samus' armor. The Witch/Phazon hybrid being stopped the assault with an all-directions shockwave of dark power that knocked Homura back. She then attempted to blast the stunned girl with a charged Phazon Beam blast, only for Golden to pull the _Puella Magi_ out of the way.

Legion fired its Predator pistols at Dark Samus, and then deployed a Combat Drone to divide her attention, but she very quickly destroyed the drone with a shotgun-blast of Phazon particles and then started rapid-firing shots at the Geth, forcing it to move around constantly to dodge, returning fire whenever it had the opportunity. Dark Samus, distracted by trying to destroy the hostile synthetic, was then blindsided by a Super Missile from Samus that knocked her away, giving Legion the chance to get some distance. As soon as she leapt/floated back up to her feet, she fired a wave of Darkness bolts at Samus. Golden Tiara appeared in front of Samus, her body glowing with green energy as she formed a powerful Biotic Barrier that managed to, by a slim margin, withstand the attacks.

Tiara lowered her Barrier and then leapt in, her forehooves glowing with Biotic power as she lashed out with powerful blows that Dark Samus was only just able to dodge. Finally she scored a hit, striking hard enough to leave a fairly large crack in Dark Samus' chestplate. In response, the entity slammed Golden in the side of the head/helmet with her cannon, stunning her, and then hit her with a Phazon-charged uppercut that sent her flying through the air in an arc, her armor's shields knocked down to zero and the stomach-area plating damaged (though thankfully not breached).

Dark Samus charged up and fired a Phazon Super-Missile at the downed Equestrian, but Homura flash-stepped in, activating her new Mana Shield and blocking the blast. Dark Samus began firing charged shots at her as quickly as she could, trying to break the shield. She was interrupted as Legion leapt in, firing its M98 Widow at her, the supersonic projectiles punching through her armor, though her lack of any vital organs or centralized systems meant that the bullets didn't do any killing damage. They did, however, stun her long enough for a charged Light Beam shot from Samus to score a direct hit, and this one DS definitely felt, reeling back and then, once she regained herself, firing a sweeping laser-like beam of Phazon that forced Samus and Legion to duck (Homura's shield still held). She then leapt high, hovering in the air and firing a barrage of Darkness bolts that arced through the air toward Samus from several directions. Suddenly, though, Homura appeared right beside Samus, the device on her arm letting out a 'click' as it deactivated, and at the same time several Fire-type _Sagitta Magica_ appeared out of nowhere right in the paths of each Dark bolt, colliding and cancelling them out.

Dark Samus was then enveloped in a green glow and slammed down to the ground with great force, such that she bounced a little, her armor taking another blow. As she got up to her feet, she let out another flare of her dark aura, some of her armor's damage partially repairing itself, as several Phazon Familiars sprang up around her. The Darkness/Phazon hybrid creatures attacked, forcing Legion and Golden Tiara to focus on them while Dark Samus engaged Samus and Homura in combat.

Homura fired off another barrage of Fire-type _Sagitta Magica_, the magical flame projectiles curving through the air and converging on Dark Samus from several angles. At the same time, Samus fired five Seeker Missiles at her evil copy. Dark Samus conjured a dark barrier-shield that stopped about half of the combined ordnance heading her way before shattering and leaving her subjected to the rest. She fired a scatter-shot of Darkness/Phazon particles; Homura's shield blocked most of them while Samus leapt over the rest. Samus then transformed into her Morph Ball form and boosted toward Dark Samus, rolling to the side a bit to dodge the entity's shots and then dropping a Power Bomb once she was in close. She rolled way, re-assuming her normal form, as the powerful explosive did a number on Dark Samus.

Dark Samus 'roared' in fury, firing three Phazon Super-Missiles in rapid succession. Samus dodged the first one, but the other two were coming straight at her with no time to avoid. Suddenly, she found herself in a grayscale, time-frozen world, with Homura pulling her out of the way of the now-stationary missiles by the wrist. The young girl un-froze time, allowing the two missiles to detonate harmlessly against the ground.

"I think I have something that can bring her down" Homura said. "But I'll need a moment to ready it; the spell I'm going to use requires a verbal incantation, as I don't yet know it intricately enough to cast it non-verbally."

Samus nodded, and then rushed in, firing Annihilator Beam shots at her dark doppelganger. The other two had finished dealing with the Familiars, and Legion gave Samus covering fire while Golden stood by Homura as extra defense. Dark Samus began charging another powerful attack, but Samus used her Grapple Beam to grab hold of her ankle and yank it, forcing her to stumble and break off her attack. Samus then blasted her evil twin with a charged Annihilator Beam shot, dealing a fair amount of damage. As she got in close, though, she had to backpedal and jump away as Dark Samus unleashed a shockwave-field of Phazon energy around herself for a few seconds.

There was a sudden flare of magical power that drew the combatants' attention. Homura's body flared with chaotic Darkness-type power, intricate glowing runes appearing on her hands and forearms; if one looked close, similar tiny runes appeared on her Soul Gem, the presently accumulated Witch-causing Darkness being pushed out or consumed by this new dark power. A rapidly-spinning, swirling mass of dark flames was floating just in front of her outstretched hand. She grasped it, clenching it in her fist, and immediately the compressed spell disappeared, being absorbed by her body. Near-instantly, she changed – her body and clothes, all of her, darkened to a great degree, her colors almost inverting, flames of black, purple, and dark-red surrounding and forming from her, the sclera of her eyes black while the irises glowed with their normal purple color.

"_Magia Erebea_ Form:" she said, "_Sim Fabricatus Ab Incendio._"

Homura charged, her body brimming with vastly increased magical power. Dark Samus fired several shots, but Homura stopped time, reappearing directly in front of the dark being and unleashing a crushingly powerful blow that, in addition to dealing physical and burning damage, had a slight mana-draining effect, weakening Dark Samus ever so slightly. She followed up with several more blows, finishing with a rising blow that sent Dark Samus hurtling upward. Homura then flash-stepped up into the air, appearing right above Dark Samus and dealing a blow that sent her crashing into the ground below. Then, her right arm surged with power as she made a sweeping downward motion with it.

"Stored spell release! _Emittam: Incendium Gehennae_!"

A swirling torrent/explosion of dark flames engulfed Dark Samus, hiding her from view as it burned and blasted her and everything near her. Homura landed by the others, panting lightly, her body returned to its normal appearance. Eventually, the flames subsided, revealing a scorched-clean area. Dark Samus staggered and stumbled, her armor smoldering and bearing significant damage. With a growl, she vanished in a burst of Phazon, retreating back to her & Samus' home realm. The Witch's Domain dissolved away, taking the Phazon inside with it and returning the quartet back to the real world.

"It is unfortunate that we were unable to terminate hostile subject Dark Samus" Legion stated.

"It will take her a while to recover from that much damage" Samus replied. "At the very least, we've put her out of commission for a month or two."

"Let's head back to base" Golden said. "I've got to get my armor looked at…"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Groundside Warehouse Base**

The quartet arrived back at the DDF's secret base, finding most everyone already there. Goku was there as well, having hurried over to this realm.

"I heard about what happened" he said solemnly. "The Incubators won't get away with this."

"They trample upon sapient beings' right to freedom" Optimus said. "This cannot stand."

"We'll find a way to make things right" Negi said. "So, how was the Witch?"

"It wasn't a Witch" Homura replied. "It was Dark Samus; she's completely absorbed the corrupted Grief Seed and gained some Witch-based powers."

"How powerful was she?" Mami asked.

"Homura here had to use her newest big technique to drive her to retreat" Golden replied.

"New technique?" Madoka asked. "What does she mean by that, Homura?"

"Well…" the dark-haired girl said. "Remember a few days ago, when Eva-san and Negi-kun took me to the former's 'Resort' for some training? Well, she decided to teach me a little something… extra."

She raised her arm, concentrating her magic a little, and the runes appeared on it.

"_Magia Erebea_…" Sayaka breathed out, eyes wide.

"Master said that Homura-san has enough of a darkness affinity and enough negative feelings & memories in her Heart that she possesses a strong affinity for it" Negi said. "And that the power boost it gives should help in being able to protect Madoka-san."

"So, has anything else happened?" Golden asked.

"…I've been thinking a whole lot" Madoka said. "About this whole situation we're in. And… I've got an idea on how we can fix this. …Homura, that function of your device that transplants memories into us wasn't just a fluke, right?"

"…Not according to the Bureau's examiners, no; I can make it perform that function again if need be. Why?"

"Because I've come up with a wish that could solve our problems. I'm going to find Kyubey and trick him into unraveling his own plot. If, by some chance, this doesn't work, I want you to go back again and give the next us-es our memories again, so I'll know not to try what I'm going to. But I am very confident that this will work."

Everyone reacted with mild shock.

"Are you sure about this?" Sora asked. "It sounds way too dicey."

"Absolutely not!" Homura said. "I can't let you risk yourself like this again!"

Madoka grasped the other girl's hands, staring into her eyes. "Homura, please… trust me. And if it doesn't work, you can always rewind time again and give us our memories of all this, and I'll come up with something else. Just… please, let me try this."

Staring into Madoka's eyes, Homura knew she was completely helpless to refuse anything the pink-haired girl asked of her. "…Okay" she said. "Just please, be careful. I don't know how many more times I can take losing you, Madoka."

Madoka giggled and then kissed Homura on the forehead, making the other girl's face go red.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Outside the Base (sealed-off rear parking lot, for isolation/privacy from mundanes)**

**20 Minutes Later**

Everyone stood back, watching, as Madoka stepped into the center of the empty lot, closing her eyes and waiting. Several seconds later, Kyubey appeared in front of her.

"You called for me" the Incubator said. "I assume this means you are ready to forge a Contract?"

"I have a wish in mind, yes" Madoka replied.

"Very well, then. Let's see what we have to work with."

Madoka winced a little as a pinprick of light – her Heart – emerged, floating in front of her chest.

"What's this?" Kyubey asked. "There is no darkness here. I've never seen a soul – a 'Heart', your Keyblade-wielding friends call it – with no darkness. I assumed it was inherent in all sapient beings."

"Earlier," Madoka said, "an enemy forcibly extracted the Darkness from my Heart and turned it into a monster we had to fight. My Heart's been stripped clean of it. And, I've done some research, assisted by Aqua-san and Yen Sid-sama, and determined that the corruptive external darkness that triggers transformation into a Witch requires a bit of internal, inherent darkness to latch on to."

"But that would mean that, now that your 'Heart' has been rendered pure, you cannot become a Witch. This is unprecedented… and unfortunate for my people's plans."

Homura's jaw dropped. Vanitas' attempt to inconvenience and hinder the group had ended up helping them instead, in a big way. But what was Madoka planning to do with what was essentially a consequence-free wish?

"It is of little importance" Kyubey said. "We can still harvest energy from other _Puella Magi _across the planet. Now then, Kaname Madoka, what is your wish?"

Madoka smirked. "I wish… that for all _Puella_ and _Puer Magi_, our souls were no longer in Gem form outside our bodies, but back in intangible form within us where they belong! And that this will also be true for any who become _Puella_ or _Puer Magi_ in the future!"

Kyubey's ever-present cat-like grin dropped into an expression of shock.

"And," Madoka continued, "since _Puellae _only become Witches so often because their Hearts are outside their bodies and thus exposed to the Darkness of the physical realm, we'll never again have to worry about keeping our Soul Gems – our Hearts – cleaned of this external corruption, and that will all but eliminate the birth of any more Witches!"

"This cannot happen!" Kyubey said. "This would completely destroy the system my people have used for 90,000 years! I cannot grant this wish!"

Madoka grinned. "I know how your power works, Incubator. You have no choice _but_ to! Now, _grant my wish!-!_"

Madoka's soul/Heart returned to within her body. Then, a bright flash of pink light emitted from her body, followed by a pink-hued magical shockwave that raced out in every direction at hypersonic velocity, washing over everything and everyone. Homura, Sayaka, Mami, Kyōko, and Kyōsuke's bodies briefly glowed with pure white light and light of their respective aura colors, as their Hearts returned to within their bodies. The wave of Light magic raced across the globe, affecting every _Puella Magi_ on the entire planet. And with every _Magi_ it hit, they found their heads filled with the knowledge of the Incubators' plot, of the true nature of Soul Gems and Witches… and of how one selfless girl in Japan had freed them all from a terrible curse.

Back in the lot, Madoka hovered a few feet off the ground in her magical-girl outfit, her wood/flower-themed magic bow in her hand. She opened her eyes, and they were shining with her power. Homura fell to her knees, overwhelmed both by the beautiful sight and by the knowledge that the _Puella Magi_'s curse had finally been lifted.

"Your scheme of sacrificing entire species to affect something so far in the future that even your own race will be long extinct is over, Incubator" Madoka said. "You'll not make any more children suffer. I suggest you take your leave; you and your kind are no longer welcome on this planet. I give you one chance to leave of your own volition."

"…This is impermissible, human" the Incubator said. "This ruination of our lives' work will not go unanswered. We will take our leave for now, but heed our words: we will return to reclaim by force the energy of your species. We shall be the universe's salvation through your destruction."

"Don't count on it" Cadence interrupted. "My elder sister erected a multi-dimensional barrier around her own world's star system to keep any remnants of our family from finding us; I'm sure she and I can manage something around this one planet to keep your people out, especially with Master Yen-Sid's and the TSAB's help. You're finished here, Incubator."

"You delay the inevitable. Your extinction shall be the universe's salvation. We-"

A Strike Raid from Sora tore through Kyubey's body, destroying it for good.

"She gave you a chance to leave on your own, and you didn't take it" Sora said to the body that was rapidly disintegrating into mana particles. "Now get lost!"

All across Earth, Incubators made their exodus en masse, often 'helped' along by the girls they'd once deceived, who were all too happy to turn their powers and weapons on the beings who'd planned to sacrifice them all. As the ancient manipulators fled the planet, Madoka walked over to the others, de-transforming as she approached.

"It's not quite over yet" she said. "We've still got a lot to do. But there's one thing we won't have to worry about anymore, at least."

She was promptly group-tackle-hugged by the other four _Puellae_. They stayed like that for a minute or so.

"Now girls," Madoka said, "there's a few things you should know. My wish didn't get rid of any Witches that already exist, so we'll still have to fight the few left as they manifest… including Walpurgis."

"But we won't become Witches anymore" Kyōko said. "That's the important part."

"Well…" Madoka said. "That's technically not 100% true. Remember, Witches are the Heartless of _Puella Magi_. Now that our Hearts are back in our bodies and incorporeal, they won't be constantly corrupted by the 'background darkness' of the material realm anymore. But if any _Puellae Magi_ were to become Heartless, like by their Heart being consumed by Darkness or by them being overwhelmed and forcibly transformed by Heartless, they'd become Witches. So you girls be careful not to get too deep in Darkness, okay?"

They all nodded.

"Why do we still have our Soul Gems?" Sayaka asked as she pulled her gold-framed blue gem out of her pocket.

"Don't worry, Sayaka-chan. Your Heart is back inside your body where it belongs. Our Gems are just 'transformation trinkets' now, like the Bureau people's inactive Devices or _Ala Alba_'s Pactio cards or the Sailor Scouts' little wands. Also, they're indestructible now… which is good, because they'll still take the same forms and locations when you're transformed as they used to. Also…" she grabbed Sayaka's gem "they can still be used to transmit sensations."

She oh-so-gently rubbed her fingertip on the gem while mentally 'transmitting' the desired feeling through her intent, and Sayaka suddenly started giggling helplessly as she was phantom-tickled. After a few seconds Madoka let up, returning the gem to Sayaka.

"So what happens now?" Kyōsuke asked.

"We keep an eye out for any older Witches that haven't emerged yet," Mami replied, "and also continue preparing for Walpurgis' arrival."

"U-Um, hello?"

The group turned to look as a girl around 13 or 14 years old with pale-purple hair and teal eyes approached, looking shy and nervous. However, she was holding a teal-colored Soul Gem in her hand.

"Hello there" Madoka said with a smile as she stepped forward to meet the newcomer. "You're a _Puella Magi_ too, I take it. Were you drawn her by my, um… little light show?"

The girl nodded. "You're… Kaname Madoka-san. W-When you made your wish, the wave of magical power put the information into my head about everything that had happened. You saved us from… f-from… I can't believe I trusted him! Kyubey gave me the power to protect people from the kind of monsters that killed my father, but all he really wanted w-was to…"

"It's okay. He can't do that anymore."

"I know. I know… U-Um, I'm from Sendai. I heard there was a team of elite _Puellae Magi_ here in Mitakihara, so I… decided to see if I could be of more use here than there, since there haven't really been any Witch attacks there in a long while. It took me about a week to get here. Um… Do you… Do you mind if I join your team, Kaname-san?"

Madoka looked to the others, who nodded. "Sure!" she said, smiling welcomingly.

The new girl blushed a little with a small smile. "T-Thank you!" she said. "Um… My name's Miyako – Ishimura Miyako. I don't have any family; mom died when I was two, and dad was… k-killed by a Witch a couple of years ago."

"What are your powers?" Kyōko asked.

The girl held out her Soul Gem, and was then enveloped in teal light. When it faded, she was wearing long dark-grey pants that went down to just above her ankles, sky-blue shoes with little armor plates over the toes, a tight powder-blue shirt with an open long-sleeved deep-blue jacket, and her upper-back-length hair was in two pigtails that hung down the back (i.e., like Tsunade's hairstyle).

"I can create and manipulate ice." She demonstrated by holding her hands out, and an intricate ice crystal formed floating between her palms that she then let drop. "And this is my weapon." She formed a war-hammer half as tall as she was, lifting it with practiced ease.

"Well, then," Madoka said, "welcome to the team, Miyako-chan. Let's get you properly filled in on everything that's going on, who are allies are and what we're up against."

Miyako nodded, accepting Madoka's offered hand.

_-Break-_

A lone figure, clad in armor and carrying a staff, stood atop a tall building on the edge of the city. She extended her 'sense', and soon detected what she'd been seeking for two years: the energy signature of a certain spark.

"He's here…" she hissed.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: Another new enemy, picking up a plot thread that's been left dangling unassumingly since Rise Of The Phoenixes. Also, a couple more 'boss fights', including one against a foe that's already been introduced but we know nothing about yet.


	7. Hunters From The Dark

This chapter introduces a character from a series of stories on an old Yuku-based site/community called 'Bottoms Valley' that went offline well over a year ago. Attempts to Google the site's former members, characters, or stories have met with total failure. As far as I can tell, their mentions in this fic series are all that remains of them on the entire Internet. If anyone knows anything I don't, please let me know.

Look up the Rejuve Universe guide/wiki for a basic bare-bones outline of what kind of universe pre-War LDR-Earth was (e.g., the Penitatas System that the Phoenix League got rid of once they defeated and ousted the Sol Confederacy), and thus what the character introduced here was subjected to. TO be specific, she is a 'Black Circle'; "It is important to note that Black Circle and Broken circle are the only occasions where the court permits sexual activity with pennies, occasionally ordering court approved molestation and in extreme cases penetration when warranted", according to the specs. However, remember that the Sol Confederacy was virulently corrupt; she was given such a harsh sentence not because of any actual evildoing, but because she was performing 'investigative reconnaissance' of the Confederacy on behalf of her people, and the Confederacy's corrupt upper echelons were _very_ serious about preventing their wrongdoings from being exposed to the other races of the galaxy.

Also, don't worry: this chapter _will_ feature present-day Madoka-verse happenings; the first part just serves as the new character's backstory before her present-day self arrives on-scene.

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Dimension LDR-15 ****–**** Earth**

**17 Years Ago – 15 Months Prior to War's Outbreak**

**10:45 PM Local Time**

Eve T'Lesh of the Nightsailer Clan, member of the proud Lucavi race, currently with the body of a five-year-old, lay curled up in the fetal position in 'her' bed, crying her eyes out. She'd been violated. As a 'Black Circle'-class _penni _(really, she'd confirmed that the few people she'd killed had been wanted serial killers, and they'd attacked her first anyway; the real reason they hit her with such a harsh sentence was because she was caught investigating the very, very corrupt Sol Confederacy on behalf of her people), she was required by the courts to be 'punished' sexually in addition to the alarmingly frequent and harsh spankings.

At first, her jailers/'caretakers' had honored her request regarding one of her clan's cultural traditions, that (with some exceptions in extenuating circumstances such as rape) a Nightsailer Clan female had to marry whoever took her virginity. This had been devised by her clan centuries ago mostly to prevent (or at least strongly discourage) promiscuity and premarital sex. Over the centuries, though, Lucavi society and socio-cultural norms had evolved considerably, to the point where the stigma attached to such activities had dwindled away to almost nothing. However, the old tradition's evolution into modern times meant that Nightsailer Clan women, though no longer required to fulfill the old tradition, still held their virginities to be even more precious/important than those of other clans; while there were plenty of promiscuous outliers amongst the clan (and all of the Lucavi race's other clans, having never developed or adopted her clan's old tradition), others – such as Eve's family – were very adamant on saving themselves for long-term mates, and held their chastity until then as near-sacred.

Her '_penni_-parents' Heskov and Silvia had initially respected her clan culture while following the _Penitatas _Court's orders, relying on toys, fingers, and her other two 'orifices' (though her human _penni_-sister Claudia was, unfortunately, not given the same 'courtesy'). However, less than half an hour ago, they had finally 'carried out the Court's orders', restraining her and committing the government-mandated violation of her purity. They had bound her in a 'favorable' position, and gagged her for some reason she couldn't comprehend (it was actually so her pleas and screams wouldn't break Heskov's heart during the act; he was just following the Confederacy's court orders, after all, and he & his wife had come to care for their charges despite everything). And then he'd defiled her. All because his superiors – the human government itself – told him to.

Eve lay alone in her pain and misery. These humans were so like her people in physical form, yet at heart they were twisted and evil through and through. And it looked like she would be a prisoner of them for the next 100 years.

'I don't know if anyone can hear me…' she thought, in the depths of despair. 'But if you can… please… save me.'

…

"_**I hear you, child.**_"

Her tear-blurred eyes snapped open, and she painfully got up into a sitting position. The dark room she was in was now lit by a faint, deep red light that had no discernible source. The voice had been impossibly deep by the standards of any races she knew of, and had a barely-perceptible metallic tint to it.

"Who is there?" she whispered.

"_**Someone who can help you, fleshling. Your soul is… different than that of others of your type I have 'sensed' before. And… I can see your memories. Such disgusting creatures, these humans. You and I have both been wronged by them, though in different ways. I believe we can help each other.**_"

"…How? And who are you?"

"_**I no longer possess a name. I dwell in another realm, another 'universe', if you will. I entered a state of meditation, and it enabled me to sense the darkness in your wounded soul calling out for salvation. If you wish, I can bestow upon you a parcel of my power, and with it you can gain vengeance upon this filthy race called 'humanity' for all they have done to you, just as I shall do against the humans of my realm. Pledge yourself as my subordinate, and I can give you everything.**_"

Eve was quiet as she contemplated. The despair and loss in her heart transformed into rage and hatred as she dwelled upon everything these humans had said and done to her since they captured her, as well as what evidence she'd gathered on the Confederacy's actions. She did not notice as her room door opened, and a startled Heskov, Silvia, and little Claudia came upon the room lit by unnatural red light. He tried to walk toward her, only to bounce off an invisible barrier that kept them in. He shouted, but she did not hear him. But the three were able to hear clearly Eve's next words.

"These humans…" the little Lucavi said, spitting the species name out like it was a curse. "They are a cruel and vile species indeed. You are right in that, whoever you are. I will do _anything_ to gain my vengeance upon them. For all that they have done, to me and to other peoples of the galaxy, humanity… must die."

"_**Do you accept my gift, little fleshling?**_"

"…Yes. I pledge myself to you and your ideals, and will use my power to scour their wretched race from the galaxy."

"_**Well said. Now… transform and rise up!**_"

The three onlookers watched in shock as Eve floated off the body, her little nude form shifting and growing with loud, sickening sounds as her body began to age at a rapid pace. Red energy flowed all around her, as she assumed a 'T' position in the air, back arched slightly. Crimson light shone from her open eyes and mouth, and then there was a bright flash of red light, and a shockwave that knocked the three onlookers over.

When they got back to their feet, they gasped in shock as they beheld the result. Eve was in a crouching position on the floor, her nude form having aged up to around 9 or 10 years old. New knowledge flowed through her brain, regarding her benefactor and many other things. Black and dark-red armor began to form around her, soon covering nearly her entire body. The armor covering her forearms had little metal fin-like protrusions; they undulated in waves a few times, causing a metallic rattling.

"_**Rise, my disciple.**_"

She opened her eyes, revealing glowing red irises. "Yes, my Master" she said with a wicked grin. She stood up, and a helmet formed over her head, leaving just her face exposed. She then held out her hand, and in a flash of red light a staff, black with a red power core at the tip, formed in her grip. She concentrated on the staff's power as she held it in one hand, and then she slowly raised her other hand, palm upward. The objects in the room came up off the ground, all converging and orbiting around a point in the air above her. She lowered her hand, and it all crashed to the ground. She looked at her hand, clenched it into a fist, and let out a small, evil chuckle.

"Yes…" she hissed. "This will do nicely."

"_**Leave your prison, young Eve. Train, learn, become more. And when you have become even stronger and wiser, return to that world and ravage it with your vengeance. I eagerly await the vision of a field of human corpses, their vile lives snuffed out by the power I have given you.**_"

She nodded as the red light faded away, but the red light from her armor still lit the room somewhat. She looked at the trio before her with unconcealed contempt, disgust, and hatred. As she made eye contact with the terrified Claudia, though, her expression softened. She slowly raised her staff.

"You are the only human I like, Claudia. Sleep now; when you awaken, you will not remember any of this."

She banged her staff's bottom to the ground, and Claudia fell over, snoring lightly after a few seconds. Then, she turned to Heskov and Silvia.

"I'll be back for you two" she snarled. "It may be years from now, but when I return to annihilate your disgusting species, I'll have _your_ heads first!"

She turned toward the window, as if to walk away, and then she leapt into the air… and vanished from normal reality, 'teleporting' via space bridge, away from her prison, away from Earth. She would wander the stars, gaining power and knowledge, and preparing for the day when all humans would suffer at her hands.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Dimension LDR-15 – Earth**

**Two Years Ago**

Eve walked through the cemetery that held the bodies of hundreds of Phoenix League personnel who'd died in the line of duty. Her body was now tall and lithe and muscular, her armor having changed to fit her as she grew… though she had stopped aging at 16, when she'd peaked in power. It wasn't quite raining, an almost-imperceptible mist/drizzle sprinkling down from the cloudy sky. She walked up to and stood before the holographic headstone.

CLAUDIA MARROWS-NIGHTRAY, SERGEANT

2519-2558

"You were the only good human, Claudia…" she said quietly. "But at least, now you won't be around to watch as I slaughter the wretched others of your people. …I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you from Dragovich. Goodbye, my friend."

-_Mini-Break_-

Eve pulled her staff away, withdrawing the energy blade that extended from its tip from the chest of the last Phoenix League soldier standing between her and her goal. The bodies of 10 soldiers littered the area, and now her old jailers huddled before her, wounded and terrified. She snarled as she stepped toward them.

"Eve!" Heskov pleaded. "Wait, please! We learned everything once the war got going! We learned how the Confederacy had set you up! You were innocent! We didn't know!"

"Begging won't help you, _human_" Eve snarled in reply.

As Eve stalked forward, she could sense and 'hear' that her Master, in another realm, was engaged in a climactic fight of his own.

'_**Die! Die like your brothers!**_'

'_They were __your__ brothers, too!_'

Silvia stepped between her husband and the enraged and powerful Lucavi. "Please, Eva, listen to us! We were wrong! We never meant to-"

Eve bashed her in the side of the head with her staff, sending her tumbling to the side with a head wound; she was still conscious, but stunned by the blow. Eve then rushed at Heskov, another staff blow bringing him to his knees, and then she drove the thin energy blade through his left knee, destroying it, and then bashed him in the head, knocking him to the ground. He was despondent; first he & Silvia had lost one of 'their' children, and now the other was going to kill them.

Eve raised her staff high, ready to crush Heskov's skull… when suddenly she stumbled back, dazed as the mental link with her master transmitted as he began to lose his battle.

'_Give me your face!_'

She staggered, groaning and disoriented. Then, she collapsed to her knees, clutching her head between her hands, mouth wide open in a silent scream, as she felt the unthinkable: the extinguishing of her master's Spark.

"No…" she whispered. "Master… No…"

She fell to her hands and knees, gasping for breath. And she 'heard' the voice of the one who'd murdered her master, and rage filled her.

'_I rise… you fall…_'

"Optimus…" she hissed, eyes glowing red.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Realm PM-8 – Earth – Mitakihara, Japan**

**Present Day – One Day After Madoka's Wish**

Madoka's recent "game-breaking" wish had set a few things in motion; notably, the other _Puellae Magi _had improved vastly in mood knowing that they were free of the Incubators' curse. Becoming a _Puella Magi_ had not only awakened Madoka's enormous magical potential, but her memories from previous timelines meant she knew how to use it… though she was still benefitting from studying the DDF's other branches of magic, and from training in _ki_/chakra usage stuff. Miyako was already settling in with the group, and her proper training had already begun. Lastly, Celestia had dropped by just long enough for her and Cadence, working with the Keyblade-Wielders, to erect a special barrier around the planet that would keep the Incubators out.

Right now, a patrol drove down a sparsely populated street of the city – Optimus and Bumblebee (who had earlier today swapped with Mirage as the latter headed back to their realm's Earth) in vehicle forms, carrying Evangeline, Subaru, Kyōsuke, and Sasuke. Responding to a sudden ping on their sensors, they went left, down a smaller street. Up ahead the subtle spatial distortions of an incoming Heartless spawn-in were detected, and Evangeline summoned a large Dimension-Shift barrier over the area just before the dark creatures emerged into the realm of light. Subaru and Kyōsuke leapt out of Bumblebee and summoned their magical outfits / Barrier Jackets, as their yellow-plated ally assumed his combat form. Evangeline and Sasuke likewise bailed from Optimus as he too transformed.

A shot from Bumblebee's arm cannon blew away six Shadows, while a flash-step sword slice from Sasuke cut down four Soldiers. Evangeline followed a self-imposed challenge, limiting herself to strength enhancement magic and physical blows to dispatch the dark creatures, while Kyōsuke's gauntlet-mounted blaster shot a few Air Soldiers out of the sky. Optimus and Subaru kept eyes out for any enemy reinforcements.

Suddenly, several red bolts of magic came flying in, bombarding the area, destroying the remaining Heartless while also forcing the DDF team to move frantically dodge. Optimus, carrying the special power of the Primes, had immunity to magic to protect him. But then a car came tumbling through the air toward him. He threw himself to the side, barely avoiding the 2-ton projectile that had been launched at him. The group looked in the direction the car had come from, and soon spotted the culprit.

She looked like a human in her late teens, tall and clad in full-body metallic black armor with glowing red lines here & there that faintly flickered like glowing embers. Her helmet was presently off, revealing mid-back-length black hair, and a large wicked-looking spiked staff was held in her right arm. The irises of her eyes glowed red.

"I finally found you…" she said with barely-contained rage. "Optimus Prime…"

Optimus' optics widened. "Her armor and staff, and her energy signature… They're almost exactly like The Fallen's."

"Who are you," Sasuke asked, hand on the hilt of his sword, "and what business do you have with Prime?"

"My name is Eve T'Lesh" the young woman replied. "I am a Lucavi. And I am here to take revenge against the being who killed my master."

Optimus felt a worrying suspicion. "Your master…?"

"I was a prisoner of the Sol Confederacy, punished for trying to investigate them, risking exposing their depravity, by being made into a 'Black Circle'. On the night when my purity was taken from me, my thoughts reached out to the stars as I called for help… and The Fallen heard and answered. He listened to my pleas. And he offered me the power to gain vengeance. I took his offer. And he awakened me to his power. I fled that place, wandered the galaxy for years, training and learning, until I peaked in strength and gained what I most desired: the power to exterminate the filthy, cruel, inherently vile race who call themselves 'human'.

"Two years ago, I was about to begin purging their planet of their taint. But then I sensed from across the realms as you crushed my master's Spark! So now, before I can wipe out the humans, I come to gain revenge against you for killing the entity who gave me my purpose and my freedom!"

"You would exterminate an entire species, billions of lives, just for the actions of a few thousand?" Subaru asked, horrified and angry.

"A few thousand?-! I spent 10 years observing humans and saw nothing but either cruelty or apathy! The only good human I ever knew was murdered by another human! As the years went by I realized more and more just how right The Fallen was! You humans are a blight upon creation!"

'The Fallen's power has corrupted her mind…' Optimus thought. 'Though the tortures she underwent at the hands of that particular bad group of humans are a major contributing factor as well.'

Suddenly, the team's communicators rang.

"_Team Prime, Unversed detected emerging in your area, 1100 meters southwest of your position. Our boys there have a barrier up, but they could use some help._"

"Go, Optimus" Evangeline said as she stepped toward Eve, her aura flaring to life. "Take the others. I'll handle this one."

Eve immediately tried to rush Optimus, only for Evangeline to obstruct her, blocking the staff with a blade of super-hard ice. As Optimus and Bumblebee, along with their three passengers, drove away, Eve growled at her smaller foe.

"Get out of my way, _human_" Eve snarled.

"I am no mere human" Evangeline said to The Fallen's disciple. "I am a _Shinso_-class vampiress. I have lived over 500 years, most of it alone and with everyone trying to kill me, and I have worked my way up to becoming one of the most powerful mages in existence. I know how to handle the likes of you, angry children who can't comprehend the idea of no one species being all good or all bad. …Tell you what, Lucavi; I'll not use any magic – just chakra-based techniques. That'll give you a slight chance of not being squashed like a bug."

They broke apart, Eve's helmet forming in a flash of red light, and then they charged each other.

**-**_**Mini-Break**_**-**

**1100 Meters SW of Previous Site**

**Four Minutes Later**

The five quickly arrived on-scene, the three humans engaging the rank-and-file Unversed, providing much-needed relief to the PLF fireteam already on station, while Optimus and Bumblebee started handling the bigger ones. Already, Optimus' sensors could detect the flares of magic and chakra from Evangeline & Eve's fight; he put that out of his mind as he backhanded a Bruiser. Subaru and Kyōsuke double-teamed the main body of hostiles (mostly Scrappers and Shoegazers), using their power fist weapons to crush and pulverize the Unversed. Sasuke was using _Raiton_-enhanced taijutsu to help the Autobots deal with the bigger ones and any little ones that the other two missed.

As Subaru smashed an Axe Flapper out of the air, she noticed a dark figure watching the battle from atop a nearby roof. He – or it – was extremely tall and thin, covered from head to toe in spiky black and gray armor that completely hid its entire body, including the face. Disproportionately long arms hung from its sides. It took her a few seconds, but she soon recognized who she was looking at: Slind, the most enigmatic of the Dark Voice's dark generals.

In a flash of movement, she was right in front of him, lashing out with a blow from Revolver Knuckle that he quickly blocked with a dark-magic shield. He leapt back, jumping from roof to roof, and she gave chase. After a few minutes, he felt sure he'd lured her sufficiently far away from backup, and then turned to face her, conjuring and firing a tightly-backed wave of Darkness bolts at her while she was mid-leap. She flash-stepped down, avoiding the attack, and took a combat stance. The unnaturally tall and lanky-looking daemon stood in place, the position of his helmet showing that he was 'staring' at her; she stared back, her eyes flickering blue as she readied the 7-Tailed Wolf's chakra.

Slind let out a deep, quiet chuckle, slowly walking toward her… and then, with a burst of surprising speed, he charged, 'arms' like tentacles prepared to strike. Subaru's roller-blades revved to life as she rolled toward him, power fist cocked back and _Sagitta Magica_ bolts forming around & behind her like a halo, ready to fire. The initial clash shattered every window within 10 meters.

-_Break_-

"_Suiton: Suigadan no Jutsu_!"

The high-velocity projectiles of chakra-conjured water crashed against the shield spell that Eve threw into place just in time. The instant the assault ceased, she dropped the shield and fired a large wave of bolts of crimson magic at Evangeline, who nimbly dodged every one of them. The _shinso_ returned fire with a barrage of slicing wind waves, which were cancelled out as the Fallen Lucavi spun her staff to deflect them. Eve was then caught off-guard by a chakra-charged punch to the face that sent her tumbling; she used her staff to arrest her movement, landing on her feet.

"Give it up, T'Lesh" Evangeline said. "You don't need to do this. I know where you're coming from, believe me. I spent centuries hating all of humanity. But I've met enough _good_ humans to know that the species isn't beyond hope. Especially the ones I associate with now; those kids have grown on me… If you don't drop that hatred of yours, it's going to be the death of you."

"You have no _idea_ what it was like!" Eve shouted. "I was turned into a four-year-old and used as a sex toy! I saw as billions of people were struck down and tortured like they were animals, while those around them did nothing to help – or worse, participated! I've seen more than enough to know their entire species is rotten to the core! Humans don't deserve to live!-!"

"They deserve to choose for themselves!"

"If you truly believe that," Eve's aura flared, "then you will die _with them! JOIN THEM IN EXCTINCTION!-!_"

She conjured a massive sphere of raw destructive magic and then launched it. Evangeline barely got out of the way, and the resulting explosion obliterated the three-story building a ways behind her. Then, objects from all around – dumpsters, streetlights, heavy boxes, cars, chunks of rubble – floated up in the air, hovering over Eve's head in an impressive display of telekinetic power. She swept her staff forward, toward Evangeline, and the rain was brought.

-_Break_-

Subaru fired off another big _Sagitta Magica _barrage at Slind, the oddly-built daemon twisting around to dodge some and shielding against the others. Subaru moved in while he was distracted, landing a powerful blow that blasted a few spikes off of Slind's right shoulder armor and dented the armor itself. She then had to break off from a planned second blow to dodge a whip/punch from one of the daemon's tentacles/arms, landing several meters away and squaring off with him.

Then, Slind's armor shifted and warped as a second pair of tentacles/arms emerged/formed from beneath the first. In response, Subaru's body flared blue with the 7-Tailed Wolf's chakra. Slind conjured and fired a barrage of dark-magic bolts twice as big as the previous ones. Subaru dodged them with her increased speed, and then weaved hand-seals as she stomped her foot on the ground:

"_Doton: Dōsō Danmaku_!"

Two hunks of stone as big as she was erupted upward from the ground on either side of her, both of them fracturing into hand-sized sharp chunks that launched at Slind with surprising speed and rate-of-fire, a barrage of little stone spears. And the extra chakra Subaru was running on meant that each one had enough force by itself to kill a normal human with a well-placed hit. But Slind was as far above 'normal human' as Subaru herself was, if not a tad more; he took a defensive crouch (which looked rather awkward due to his very, very tall body) and formed a durable dark-magic shield that blocked the attack. Once that was finished, he stood back up to his full height, and stared Subaru down again.

"Okay…" the blue-haired girl said as she assumed her 1-Tailed Form, blue chakra surging around her. "Let's try a little more power."

-_Break_-

The area looked like a warzone in miniature; heavy objects – including cars – were strewn about, small craters were in the road and the walls of buildings, a few small fires burned, and the two combatants were still fighting hard. Evangeline blocked another staff blow aimed at her skull, and then pulled Eve into a kick that left a small dent in her armor's chestplate. The little vampiress then tried to impale Eve from below with a few ice spears, only for the disciple of The Fallen to make a short-range teleport backward and away, avoiding being skewered… and walking into a trap, as the Shadow Clone she'd been dueling dispelled, and blocks of ultra-cold ice formed around her feet, securing her to the ground. A chirping sound came from her right, drawing closer.

Partially due to it not matching her elemental conversion affinities, Evangeline had only really used the _Chidori_ twice in combat, back during the Mahora Tournament against Klaus and then against Setsuna. Now she was using it again, the mass of Lightning chakra glowing in her hand as she rushed at Eve. Eve quickly smashed her staff down against the ice, freeing her feet, and threw herself backward just as Evangeline thrusted her attack in, aiming for her heart. The Fallen Lucavi avoided a direct blow, but even the glancing hit was powerful enough to deal considerable damage to her armor – the first time anything had managed to do so. Her eyes widened in shock; even with how durable and advanced her armor was, she wouldn't have survived a direct hit from that.

The two stared at each other, Eve holding a hand to her chest where the armor had been damaged. Just then, however, reinforcements for Evangeline arrived in the form of Asuna, Sakura, and Ishtar Solos who had hopped over through the translocation portal to see if she could be of any help. The Elvaan's eyes widened with surprise.

"…Eve?" she asked, shocked.

The Fallen Lucavi stared at the girl for a few seconds, before she recognized the person she'd met a few times during their respective travels through the stars, and once as _pennies_ on Earth.

"Ishtar…" she said. "Thrown your lot in with the humans, have you?"

"I don't understand… Eve, I'd heard rumors that you'd been sighted a few years ago after disappearing for over a decade, but I didn't think they were true. You're one of the biggest outstanding 'Missing Person' cases for the Phoenix League. What is all this? Why are you fighting us?"

"She was rescued from the Confederacy's captivity by The Fallen," Evangeline replied, "the ancient Cybertronian responsible for founding the Decepticons. His teachings and her own experiences as a 'Black-Circle' have convinced her that the human species has to be exterminated."

As Ishtar tried to wrap her head around how someone who had originally seemed a decent person could come to such a conclusion, Eve inspected the new arrivals. Between an organic Prime, a _shinso_, a shinobi, and – worst of all – an anti-magic warrior, she wouldn't stand a chance, especially in her less-than-optimal state. She quickly got to her feet and knocked her staff's bottom against the ground twice, forming a small space-bridge portal that she quickly leapt through, the rift closing behind her.

"Looks like she's withdrawn for now" Sakura said. "What now?"

"From the feel of it," Evangeline replied, "Nakajima's in a fight of her own. Let's go watch."

As they moved to leave, Ishtar looked over her shoulder at the place where her old acquaintance had 'jumped' out. She sighed, and then followed the others.

-_Break_-

Subaru's chakra shroud protected her from the dark-purple flames Slind sent her way. She launched herself up out of them, and at the peak of her jump she fired a rather large wave of _Sagitta Magica _bolts down at the daemon. He shielded to protect himself, the impacts kicking up dust. As the assault ceased, he stood up in the swirling dust… and out of it came Subaru, now in her 2-Tailed Form, with chakra claw cocked back. Before Slind could react she caught him in the side of the head with it, cracking his helmet and sending him slamming down into the ground at an angle, bouncing along with considerable speed, eventually slamming into the side of a building, which partially collapsed atop him.

Subaru stood slightly hunched over, two chakra tails slowly swishing around. Suddenly some friendly faces arrived – Marie, Kyōko, Fate, and Chisame. She turned to face them, disengaging her chakra shroud.

"Hey, girls" she said. "Nice of you to join me."

"Who are you fighting?" Fate asked.

"Slind" Subaru replied. "That one of the Dark Voice's direct subordinates who we know, like, nothing at all about. I just gave him a chakra claw to the face; he's in that rubble over there."

The rubble shifted as Slind emerged, hunched over. Pieces of his damaged armor fell off, and as he straightened up it revealed a portion of his upper right chest and the right side of his face. …And when they saw him, Marie and Chisame went white as ghosts as terror gripped their hearts. Beneath Slind's armor, he looked to be wearing what could best be described as a suit. And where there should have been a right side of a face, there was featureless blank.

'Slind' was the true/real name of the being whom many humans had nicknamed 'Slender Man'.

Slind 'stared' out at the new arrivals. Already he could feel the fear of two of them providing him with a little sustenance and power, but at the same time the raw power he was sensing from the group – especially the tallest one with the lightning affinity and the Beast Host he'd been fighting – was too much for him to go against alone. Darkness swirled behind him as a Dark Gateway formed, and he stepped backward through it, retreating from this realm for now.

"Shit…" Chisame breathed out. "It was really him…"

"Who?" Sakura asked.

"We'll explain when we get back to base" Marie replied. "Suffice to say, though, he's a figure of terror for those of us who know of his existence, even if he's fi… if we always _thought_ he was fictional. And if he's actually one of the Dark Voice's heavy hitters…"

"Let's eat first" Subaru said. "I'm hungry after all that."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

'**Arrival Park' (Dimension-Shift Barrier)**

**Simultaneous With Other Battles**

Sora and Madoka, having dealt with the small Demon incursion here, were on the lookout for any more trouble. However, they'd seen nothing for the past few minutes. They could sense the two high-power-level battles elsewhere in the city, but things here seemed to be quiet for now. Then, however, a quick-fired cluster-shot of pink magic arrows from Madoka intercepted the dark-magic bullets that had been coming at Sora from above & behind. The young Keyblader spun around, looking for the culprit, and soon he & Madoka spotted the one responsible.

"Yo!" Vanitas said from atop a tree. "I'm bored again. Maybe you two can keep me busy for a while."

"That's it?" Sora said, gripping his Keyblade as Vanitas jumped down the ground. "You're just picking a fight because you're bored?"

"That, and pinkie there" he pointed to Madoka "is strong enough that the boss thinks she's a big enough threat to warrant being nipped in the bud before she can get offworld and cause us more trouble than she already has."

"You won't find that to be easy" Madoka replied, aura flaring lightly as she readied her bow.

(BATTLE MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep _– "Enter the Darkness")

"Maybe," Vanitas smirked, "but I'm at least gonna try. This should be pretty fun~…"

Three magical auras flared – one black, one white, and one pink. After a few seconds, Sora made the first moving, firing a Triple Firaga at Vanitas, who blocked with a wall of ice that in turn was shattered by a piercing arrow from Madoka. Vanitas swung his Keyblade at the girl, unleashing a slicing wave of Darkness at her, and when she blocked it with a quick-shield he was right behind it, Void Gear swinging at her neck. She blocked it with her bow, and retaliated with a kick aimed at his 'weak spot' that he leapt back to avoid, returning fire with a Dark Firaga aimed at her face. Sora stopped it with a Reflega and then dashed forward with a Sonic Blade attack which was forceful enough that blocking it knocked Vanitas back and made his arms tingle.

Sora followed with a combo of blows that hit home, but before he could deal a finisher Vanitas vanished underground, leaving a brief afterimage. He popped out of the ground directly behind Sora, swinging his blade at the boy's neck, only to be stopped by a surprise right cross from Madoka that knocked him away, protecting Sora. Mid-tumble, Vanitas hand-sprung into a controlled landing on his feet, and then fired a wave of Darkness-charged ice blasts. Madoka and Sora shot and sliced them out of the air, and Sora then charged and fired a Ragnarok, several bolts of magic spiraling through the air toward Vanitas. The Unversed Lord timed it just right and fired a shotgun-burst of Darkness bolts that impacted and cancelled out the Light projectiles.

Madoka rushed in, as with a flash of pink her magical-girl outfit's normal shoes were replaced by armored boots with high heels… except the heels were blades. She moved in close, weaponizing those ballet lessons she'd taken a year or so ago, lashing out with slicing strikes at Vanitas' neck and joints. Sparks flew as he blocked her blade-kicks with his Void Gear, as he constantly stayed on the move to dodge or parry her kicks. Finally, the more experienced Vanitas took advantage of a split-second opening, grabbing hold of Madoka's ankle and pulling her into an elbow to the gut that stunned her. He spun her around and went for a falling axe kick to the head, only to be punched out of the air by Sora before his blow could connect. Madoka nodded in thanks to Sora.

Vanitas charged again, flash-stepping closer in a zigzag pattern to try and throw his two opponents off. As he got in close he swung his blade down at Madoka while firing a shotgun-burst of Darkness at Sora; the latter protected himself with a Reflega, while the former twisted to the side to narrowly avoid the potentially deadly strike, counterattacking with a kick aimed at Vanitas' neck that the Unversed Lord bent over backwards to dodge. As he straightened back up, though, Madoka's spin from the kick carried the back of her fist into his face, stunning him enough for Sora to land a few blows with his Keyblade before his opponent managed to get away.

Vanitas made a feint and landed a magic-empowered kick that sent Sora hurtling away, and then flashed backward, landing atop a tree, and then conjured a very large amount of Darkness bolts. Madoka countered by forming an equally large amount of Light-type _Sagitta Magica_. The two fired, the clashing forces meeting in the middle with multiple little explosions, kicking up a sizeable smoke cloud. After a few seconds, Vanitas came soaring out of the cloud, rocketing down towards Madoka with Void Gear readied and a vicious grin on his face. However, Sora appeared in front of Madoka and blocked Vanitas' attack just in time, and then hit him with the technique Naruto had taught him back while Gamma Team had been busy on Equestria:

"_Rasengan_!"

The chaotically spinning sphere of chakra grinded into Vanitas' torso, and then detonated with enough concussive force to send him hurtling through the air in an arc, landing with a thud. After several seconds, he struggled to his feet. Snarling under his breath, he formed a Dark Gateway and allowed himself to fall backwards through it, retreating. Madoka and Sora slowly relaxed, the former returning her shoes to their normal form.

"I wonder what else the others got up to while we were handling him" Sora said.

"Only one way to find out" Madoka replied.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Warehouse Base**

**35 Minutes Later**

Back at base, Marie and Chisame were filling people in on as much as they could about the mythos revolving around Slind's alias, while Ishtar was trying to figure out how to tell Semira that her little sister was alive and had become a monster with goals of human extinction. In another corner of the area, some of the 'big guys' (Holland, Teana, Aqua, Naruto, Negi) had gathered with Homura.

"It's almost time" the girl said. "In a matter of days, Walpurgis will be here. I just hope we're ready…"

"We'll be fine" Naruto replied. "And we can use Eva-chan's Resort to squeeze in some extra training for you girls, if that makes you feel any better."

"Let's just hope no one else decides to crash the party" Teana said. "We're gonna have enough on our plate as it is."

"Well, considering our luck with such things…" Col. Holland said.

"Good point. We'll need to be ready for anything and everything."

"Don't worry, Homura-san" Negi said with a Springfield Smile. "We've got this."

Despite everything that could go wrong, Homura couldn't help but believe him.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

**DDF CODEX – LUCAVI: **"The Lucavi, or _Homo sapiens sanguinus_, are a subspecies of human native to the world of Lucavos in Realm LDR-15. They are distinguished from baseline humans by significantly better night vision, and by the need to feed upon the blood of living beings, preferably sapient ones, to remain healthy, though the amount of blood drawn is rarely fatal to the person being fed upon unless the Lucavi they encounter is enraged or starving; they generally take no more than what is given in the average blood donation. They can survive on other foods, but going too long without properly 'feeding' leaves them weak and sickly.

"Lucavi, especially military personnel, are renowned for their skill in stealth, making them scouts and assassins of near-unparalleled skill. They have developed similar stealth skill in space; Lucavi starships, especially warships, use a combination of ablative coating, limited active camouflage, and emission-capture technology similar to that introduced by the Systems Alliance _Normandy SR-1_, to render them nigh-undetectable in anything other than the visual spectrum, and not very easy to find in that. Unfortunately, their ships are rarely capable of surviving, let alone winning, protracted firefights against their counterparts wielded by other races due to comparatively weak armor; however, adoption of Elvaan shield technology and the introduction of the _Eclipse_-class supercarrier, an unsubtle behemoth of extraordinary offensive and defensive power, are changing this.

"Lucavi government is a federation of multiple member-states called Clans; each Clan is composed of hundreds to dozens of thousands of families, all of which share a common ancestry with other families in the Clan. Each Clan democratically elects its leaders, and the Clan Heads in turn form a council that serves as the primary governing body for the Lucavi as a whole. In addition, the Lucavi armed forces are deliberately engineered to not be loyal to any one Clan above any others, with members of all Clans integrated near-seamlessly. One of the oldest, largest, and most influential is the Nightsailer Clan, the members of which have a strong military tradition; many Nightsailers become either special-forces operatives or naval personnel. Due to their size and presence, and due to their younger members' common drive to explore the galaxy, they typically act as the 'face' of the Lucavi when dealing with other races.

"The Lucavi have been rather isolationist for most of their time as a spacefaring race, conducting the occasional quiet trade with other species or hiring out their services to those who can keep quiet and professional about it. However, in February of 2552 they formed a long-term politico-military and trade alliance with the Elvaan and the Kyyreni. This alliance, semi-formally known as the Tripartate, has quickly made a name for itself as a dominant power in the galaxy due to its combined economic and military strength. Fortunately, they do not seem keen to pick fights with any of the galaxy's other players, and in fact enjoy warm relations with the Phoenix League Federation and its allies."

**GATHERED DATA – SLIND:**

Lesser Daemon

Approximately 11,000 years old

Has been terrorizing humanity for over 8,000 years; Earth is his favorite haunting ground and his first.

His first 'targets' were the Kongemose, who lived where Denmark now is, around 6400-5400 BC, but he really started hitting his stride with the Sumerians (~4th millennium BC).

Has also terrorized the Al-Hazredians (~600BC to ~800 AD), the Belkans (~1100 AD to ~1880 AD), and the people of _Mundus Magicus_ (~2800BC to present, though Slind first showed up there around 75BC)

**Aliases: **_Kol-Igriss _("Black Demon") (Al-Hazredians), _Dünnmensch _(Belkans), Stalker From The Forest (_Mundus Magicus_), Slender Man (Terrans)

Literally feeds on fear, terror, panic, and paranoia, drawing sustenance from it; he seeks to cause these emotions in excess whenever possible, prolonging his targets' mental and emotional suffering before he kills them to consume their life-force.

Is literally empowered by fear, even if that fear is repressed or fought. If you fight him and are afraid, that fear empowers him. If you stand to fight him for a noble cause, crushing that fear deep down and drawing on your bravery and strength of Heart to completely eclipse it much like any _shōnen_ hero does for an epic big battle, the mere presence of that fear – no matter how deeply it is pushed down and drowned out by courage, no matter how much your enduring spirit and blazing heart suppress it, even if you don't consciously know the fear is still there – is still enough to empower him. Also, the more people who are scared are nearby, the more powerful he is.

Was originally created by a daemon named Zalgo. 800 years ago, Zalgo challenged and was defeated by The Dark Voice, who claimed 'ownership' of Slind as payment in return for letting the badly-beaten Zalgo live and run away. Slind himself cares little who his master is, so long as he gets plenty of opportunity to 'hunt'.

Has only been defeated four times before present. First was by Yeshua/Jesus of Nazareth, who send Slind scurrying with but a glare (and also, somehow, managed to harm Zalgo in the process); Slind did not come anywhere near what is now Israel for over 1,600 years after that, and even today rarely goes there unless the opportunity to feed is too good to pass up. Second was by the Lifemaker, Mage of the Beginning, 840 years ago; the Lifemaker, a Precursor Archmage of incredible power, defeated and nearly killed him, forcing him to retreat. Third was Belkan _Sankt Kaiser_ Olivie Segbrecht, 105 years ago; her fear which Slind could draw strength from was cancelled out by the fact that she still outclassed him due to her sheer, raw power, dealing significant wounds and then forcing him to retreat with a holy artifact (he could've stayed and killed her, but it would have resulted in his own death). Fourth was Jack Rakan six years ago, because Rakan fears nothing, and nothing stops Rakan.

Slind can take on a fully-armored form. When in this form his personality and capabilities change somewhat, becoming _far_ more overtly aggressive, and well-suited to direct combat. Though it arguably makes him less imposing and frightening, and in fact appears almost cliché compared to his stalking/hunting-oriented, paranoia-inducing normal form, the loss of his usual fear-causing methods are made up for by the rather large increase in power, enabling him to stand against foes that could defeat his Base Form with relative ease.

**NEXT TIME: **The Night of Walpurgis arrives


	8. Night of Walpurgis

Sorry this took me forever; I've been busy, and it takes me a long time to write out fight scenes.

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Three Days After Previous Chapter**

Everyone had trained as much as they could. Strategies had been come up with based on what Homura knew. Goku and Vegeta had come over to provide some extra power, just in case, and had managed to teach Naruto and Sasuke ki/chakra-based flight. Everyone was as ready as they were going to be.

Finally, the moment arrived: a dark and powerful energy signature was detected emerging near the center of the city. Damn near everyone headed there as quickly as they could thanks to Goku's Instant Transmission, appearing just outside a swirling mass of Darkness that looked like a portal. A Dimension-Shift barrier was set up around the area, just in case, and everyone stepped through.

They found themselves in a pocket realm where the ground was a dusty grey, and the sky was a mass of roiling black, purple, and dark blue. At first it looked to be infinite in size, but it was quickly determined that this Witch's Domain was around 700 meters across and 400 high.

"Something's not right" Homura said. "Walpurgis never manifested a Domain in the previous loops; she just appeared in the sky above the city and started wreaking havoc."

Suddenly a burst of Darkness appeared a distance away. It faded to reveal a bestial entity around 20 feet tall, vaguely feline in structure, that looked exactly like one of the Witches Homura had fought in a previous timeline… except it had Walpurgis' colors.

"What is this?" Homura whispered. "This isn't Walpurgis… and yet it is… How…?"

"You mentioned that Walpurgis was formed over decades or centuries by multiple Witches merging together, right?" Sasuke said. "This must be the form of one of them, maybe to test us and see how much of a threat we are."

"She certainly feels stronger than the original Witch that had that form" Homura said. "Though… not nearly as strong as her real form."

(BOSS MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts 2 _– "The Corrupted")

"No matter where her power level's at," Killer Bee said, drawing Samehada, "we'll knock her down and squash her flat!"

"Can I have this one, Sora?" Aqua asked. "You've had more fights on this world than I have; I deserve a moment to shine a little."

"Sure thing, Aqua" Sora replied. "I'll be a spectator this time; just holler if you want me to jump in."

"Count me in as well" Vegeta said with a smirk. "I could use some exercise. I'll even refrain from flying, so you two can keep up."

"How generous of you" Aqua replied in a deadpan tone.

Walpurgis' first form let out a loud roar. The trio readied themselves, Killer Bee calling up two tails' worth of Gyūki's chakra. Vegeta looked at him out the corner of his eye; at only two tails, Bee was already as strong as Goten or Trunks in their Super Saiyan forms. And the Saiyan Prince knew that even his Ascended Super Saiyan (or Super Saiyan 2) form wouldn't be enough to beat the 8-Tails itself. Truly, the Tailed Beasts were powerful entities indeed…

Aqua made the first move, firing a Prism Rain attack, the barrage of magical bolts colored in all the hues of the rainbow. They crashed against Form-1 Walpurgis, knocking her back a little but not doing any noticeable damage. The dark being retaliated with a barrage of Darkness bolts three times as numerous, forcing the trio to scatter. Vegeta fired a pair of _ki_ blasts, and these had a bit more of an effect, exploding against the Witch with enough force to knock her back a little.

The beast let out a hissing roar as she shrugged off the pain. She then surrounded herself in crackling black lightning energy and charged at Vegeta with surprising speed, only to be blindsided by a super-sized red claw made of chakra, Killer Bee's blow smashing the monster to the side mid-charge. Form-1 Walpurgis tumbled for several meters before her current body's claws arrested her movement. She inhaled deeply, and then blew out a long, large stream of multicolored fire at Vegeta and Bee, but Aqua appeared in front of them, blocking the fire with a powerful Reflega spell. Just as the shield was starting to fail, Vegeta fired a curveball blast of _ki_ that smacked the Witch in the face, forcing it to cease its attack.

Killer Bee rushed forward, swinging Samehada in a wide arc. The blow he landed across Form-1 Walpurgis' chest dealt both brute-force and slicing/slashing damage at the same time, tearing a jagged rift that revealed the roiling Darkness and evil magic that made up the Witch's internals. The wound slowly began sealing itself, as she reared back and tried to crush Bee with a Darkness-wreathed claw. Bee flash-stepped out of the way just in time, while Aqua spring-boarded off the ground-bound claw and landed a combo of Keyblade blows to Form-1 Walpurgis' head and face. Then Vegeta chimed in with a super-strength punch to the side that caused the sound of not-bones breaking.

Form-1 Walpurgis quickly recovered from Vegeta's blow and then let out a roar as her power level soared upward, blowing her three assailants back. In response to their foe reaching to maximum power level of her current body, Vegeta brought himself as high up as he could go power-wise in his untransformed state, while three more tails formed from Killer Bee's chakra shroud. Aqua's own aura flared as well; she wasn't as powerful as the Saiyan or the _Jinchūriki_, but her Keyblade, by its very nature, could do the most damage to the high-level Heartless they were facing.

Aqua formed a quick sequence of hand-seals, and a large serpentine dragon made of conjured water formed and then shot towards Form-1 Walpurgis. The attack hit with steel-crunching force, shoving the Witch back and dealing respectable blunt-force damage. As soon as the attack cut off, though, the Witch retaliated with a barrage of man-sized fireballs. Killer Bee surrounded Samehada in a shell of Tailed Beast chakra to protect it, and then used the living sword as a baseball bat to hit the fireballs away. The last one, he hit so it went sailing back and nailed Walpurgis in the face.

"Home run, muthafucka!" he cheered.

Form-1 Walpurgis snarled as she channeled arcs of black lightning over herself and charged the trio again, moving fast enough that it they had much less of a margin for error when getting out of the way. Once they dodged, Aqua fired a Blizzaga at the Witch's face, the ice temporarily obscuring her vision just long enough for Vegeta to charge up a fairly powerful ki blast that exploded with significant force upon impact, wounding and stunning Form-1 Walpurgis. In a flash of red, Killer Bee then assumed his Version-2 chakra shroud state, charging toward the stunned Witch as a large ox skull made of solidified chakra formed over his right arm. With considerable speed, he struck:

"Ox Horn Lariat!"

The blow sent Form-1 Walpurgis tumbling back, her upper torso blown open in the front by the attack. She skidded along her back for a fair distance, as Killer Bee dispelled his chakra cloak, able to tell that blow was enough to put the Witch down for the count. Vegeta and Aqua came up beside him.

"I think this form's done for" Aqua said.

"Now that she knows what we're capable of," Vegeta said, "perhaps she'll give us a _real_ challenge."

Walpurgis' body transformed into a glowing dark-purple silhouette that then began to change shape while also shrinking down. Everyone watched as the transformation completed and the silhouette faded into a solid form again. Walpurgis was now in a hauntingly human-like form, around six or seven feet tall. She looked mostly like a miniaturized version of her final form shown in Homura's memory-footage, though right-side up, with the clockwork gears replaced by dainty-looking white legs that tapered into points instead of feet, giving the illusion of constantly standing on tiptoes. Her face was pale white and almost featureless, with glowing yellow slits for eyes and a mouth that looked like stitching, like what would be used to make an old-timey cloth doll's 'face'. And when she briefly flared her aura of power with a faint little giggle that had a slight flanging effect (and her smiling 'mouth' didn't move when she made it), several people were a little startled.

"Whoa" Goku said. "I think she's actually stronger than my Super Saiyan form now."

"Still not at her full power, though" Homura replied.

"I'll handle this" Nanoha said as she stepped forward. "Negi-kun, Fate-chan, could you give me some support?"

The two Lightningusers nodded and stepped forward alongside Nanoha, standing ready. Everyone else cleared the field. Form-2 Walpurgis tilted her head a little and let out another faint, flanging giggle as she 'looked' at them.

(BOSS MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep _– "Extreme Encounters")

And then her dark aura flared, a strong gust of wind being kicked up by it. She rushed toward the trio with surprising speed, flying just above the ground, while conjuring and firing a barrage of small but powerful energy blasts at them. Nanoha formed a shield that withstood the blasts, and Fate summoned the Sign of Innocence and Bardiche's Keyblade form, using the two Keyblades to block a downward strike from Form-2 Walpurgis' right arm, which had transformed into a curved blade. Negi, power surging with _Magia Erebea_, struck the Witch with a _Raikahōken_ that blasted her back, allowing Nanoha to follow up with an Accel Shooter barrage that struck home. However, when the dust cleared Walpurgis looked none the worse for wear.

"Not even a scratch…" Negi observed. "This isn't going to be easy."

Fate rushed forward, her dual Keyblades striking with a fast-paced flurry of blows, trying to break past Form-2 Walpurgis' guard as the Witch's blade-arm moved frantically to parry or block Fate's attacks. She soon managed to score several hits against the Witch, finishing with a slicing strike that sent her flying through the air, though she managed to land on her 'feet'. Form-2 Walpurgis launched a fairly large ball of fire at the trio, only for Negi to slice it apart with a swing of Vesperina. He then fired a Light-type _Sagitta Magica_ barrage that Walpurgis 'danced' backward to dodge, firing small bursts of Darkness to cancel each magical arrow out one by one. Nanoha took advantage of an opening to flash-step in and nail Walpurgis with a strong punch to the face, but once the Witch had recovered from being sent a few meters back by it, she looked mostly unharmed. Form-2 Walpurgis flared her aura again, shoving Nanoha back; the White Ace took position alongside her partners again.

"I'm pretty sure I'll need the two Elders' help for this one" Nanoha said. She cut the tips of her thumbs open on her canine teeth and then used the blood to draw a small symbol on the palm of its opposite hand. As the small wounds were magically sealed shut, she clapped her hands together, holding them in a praying position and pressing the symbols together, and a soft, faint white glow came up around them. "You two, give me some cover until I'm ready, okay?" she said.

"Sure thing" Negi replied as he and Fate nodded.

Form-2 Walpurgis charged at Nanoha, her right arm a fire-wreathed blade, but Negi and Fate rushed to meet her, the latter using her Keyblades to block the blade while the former charged and attacked with an _Ōkahōken_. This didn't do much in the way of damage, but it did force her back, giving Nanoha a little more room. Fate followed up with a lightning-charged kick to the humanoid Witch's midsection, and the dark entity responded by wreathing herself in dark fire and trying to tackle Fate; Negi intercepted her, blasting her back with an _Incendium Gehennae_. He and Fate then both unleashed a barrage of Lightning-type _Sagitta Magica_, forcing Form-2 Walpurgis into a defensive position. However, the Witch soon grew annoyed enough to bring herself up to this form's full power, and the resulting wave of energy knocked the two electric-using mages back.

Before Walpurgis could capitalize on this opening, however, there was a massive flare of power, Nanoha's power level skyrocketing as she assumed Sage Mode, Shima and Fukasaku having appeared on her shoulders. Over on the sidelines, Naruto waved to them, and Fukasaku waved back.

"Kakarot…" Vegeta started.

"I feel it too" Goku said. "This 'Sage Mode' thing makes her about as strong as a Super Saiyan 2, at least."

"This is a pretty powerful Heartless" Shima said as she stared at the doll-like Form-2 Walpurgis. "Good thing ya called us, Nanoha-chan."

"Sage Mode should turn the tables nicely, though" Fukasaku added. "I can already tell that you're stronger than her now. This shouldn't take too long."

"Odds are she'll have another, stronger form after this one is beaten" Nanoha said. "This isn't the whole fight, just the second round."

Nanoha vanished from sight, moving so fast as to be untraceable to most eyes, and 'reappeared' with a punch that shattered Form-2 Walpurgis' hastily-constructed barrier spell and sent the humanoid Witch flying. Nanoha reappeared again in Walpurgis' path, only for the Witch to regain control just out of her range and flash-step away… and into a kick from Nanoha, who had already anticipated her movement and moved to intercept her. The White Ace continued her relentless assault, dealing blow after crushing blow to Form-2 Walpurgis without giving her the opportunity to retaliate. Eventually Nanoha finished her assault with a Rasengan to the torso that sent Form-2 Walpurgis spinning through the air, landing in a heap. After a few seconds, the human-form Witch got up… just as Nanoha finished gathering chakra for the technique Teana had taught her:

"_Katon: Gōenkyū_!"

The huge fireball, augmented slightly further by _senjutsu_ energy, raced out at very high speed, impacting Walpurgis and exploding with great force. The explosion was so strong that it created a 'small' mushroom cloud, a gust of wind sweeping across the battlefield as the spectators looked on, impressed.

"Now _that's_ firepower!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "Um… Pun unintended."

When the smoke and flames cleared, it looked like most of Form-2 Walpurgis had been burned or blown clean off; she looked charred and unsteady, with chunks missing. Then, her body began to twitch as it became a featureless purple silhouette.

"Here we go again…" Shepard said.

The amorphous Witch grew much larger, soon emerging from her transformation and into her third form. She now looked much like a Darkside Heartless, though bulkier in muscle and hunched over, and without the heart-shaped hole in the torso. She hissed, a glowing yellow mouth with jagged black triangular teeth being bared. And her power level had increased dramatically.

"This…" Homura was shaking her head, looking almost panicked. "This can't be right. This form has the same power level as the huge forms I've fought in all the previous timelines! What on Earth is happening here? This isn't her big form, but it has her big form's power level! What's going on?"

"Maybe our presence fudged up this timeline enough to trigger this" Teana suggested.

(BOSS MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts_ – "The Deep End")

"Whatever's going on," Goku said as he assumed his Ascended Super Saiyan form, "her power level's huge. I think we should have all hands on deck for this one."

"Agreed" Naruto said as he was enveloped by Kurama's golden chakra. Vegeta followed suit, assuming his own SS2 form, and everyone else flared with power as well; those who didn't yet know how to access chakra/magic readied their biggest guns. The beast roared, her power surging for all to sense.

The monster fired a wide barrage of powerful Darkness blasts; those who had strong enough shields used them, while those who didn't had to frantically dodge. Everyone spread out across the battle zone. Miyako focused her magic, and spikes of ice shot up from the ground beneath Form-3 Walpurgis, only to shatter against the beast's shadowy black hide. Nanoha fired a barrage of _senjutsu _-enhanced Accel Shooter bolts, but barely made a dent. Even a fairly powerful energy blast from SS2 Goku did little damage. As everyone started peppering the huge Witch with attacks to little effect, she charged with speed that something so big & bulky had no right to possess, rushing at Naruto. The boy leapt over the charging beast, slamming a large Rasengan down into its back as he went, but it did less damage than he'd hoped.

Madoka, Twilight, and Sora fired a swarm of Light-type magic bolts, while Teana and Sasuke threw out a double _Gōkakyū_, and they all hit, but the powerful gestalt Witch/Heartless shrugged the damage off. A huge blade of golden magic came swinging in, Fate's Jet Zanbar aimed to slice Form-3 Walpurgis in half… but Walpurgis caught the blade, the bestial Heartless' clawed feet digging into the ground until she stopped the blade's momentum. With a flare of Dark power and a growl of effort and a downward wrenching motion, she actually _broke_ the blade, the golden solid-magic weapon shattering. Thankfully, this caused no damage to Bardiche itself, but it was still a shocking development that this thing was so powerful.

Heavy weapons fire from Team Shepard, the Autobots, and Homura did little more than annoy the beast, briefly drawing her attention to them until Sonic homing-attacked her in the face and Samus blasted her in the chest with a Sunburst. Goku and Vegeta rushed in, trying to double-team the monster in their SS2 forms, but the beast's defenses withstood their blasts and strikes, and a swing of her arms sent them both flying. There was a bright blue light as Nanoha came in from the left, slamming her _Chō Ōdama Rasengan_ into Form-3 Walpurgis' side. The concussive explosion sent the large beast tumbling a good distance, while Nanoha, Shima, and Fukasaku promptly gathered chakra for their follow-up, unleashing a stream of oil, fire, and wind in Walpurgis' direction:

"_Senpo: Katon: Daiendan_!"

The wind-driven, oil-fed, _senjutsu_-supercharged wave of flame raced across the battlefield, and when it reached its target Walpurgis was engulfed in a massive explosion, a pillar of swirling fire rising up. For a few seconds, everyone watched, anxious. Then, Form-3 Walpurgis came leaping out of the flames, parts of its body smoldering but looking only lightly damaged. She roared as she charged at Nanoha… and straight into a _Rasenshuriken_ thrown by Naruto, which detonated, trapping the beast in the epicenter of a massive dome of microscopic wind chakra blades which proceeded to try cutting her apart. When the attack eventually came to its end, leaving a swirling cloud of dust, a flare of dark power cleared the dust away after several seconds, revealing Form-3 Walpurgis, looking visibly injured but with her injuries repairing themselves.

"Aw, come on!" Naruto said. "What's it gonna take?-!"

"I don't know if we have anything bigger than what we just hit her with…" Madoka said.

Suddenly, there was an echoing shout that kept going and going, accompanied by a strong golden light and a massive flare of chakra. Goku stood in the center of a golden aura blazing like an inferno, his power level shooting up as crackles of blue lightning _ki_ arced around him. As his transformation commenced and the ground began to shake, everything's colors seemed to invert for a few seconds, light seeming to be drawn to him almost. Everyone shielded their eyes from the light and power, as Walpurgis looked on with curiosity.

"What is this power?-!" Sasuke said. "This is unreal!"

"Well it's about damn time, Kakarot" Vegeta murmured.

Goku's war-cry echoed, the golden light of his aura so bright and intense as to be difficult to look directly at, his power level increased by a truly tremendous amount. Finally, there was a near-blinding flash of golden light. When the dust faded, Goku stood in a new form. His golden aura surged and blazed in a wildfire of power, his entire body had a faint golden glow to it, his spiked golden Super Saiyan hair was now down to his lower back, and his chakra level was mind-bogglingly high.

"Incredible…" Fukasaku breathed out.

"Sorry that took so long" Goku said in a quiet and deadly serious voice, lower in tone than normal. "I haven't had to use this form since fighting Hirudegarn a year or so ago, so it took a little while for me to assume it again."

"All the time I watched the show," Marie murmured, eyes wide, "I never even dreamed Super Saiyan 3 would feel so… overwhelming…"

Form-3 Walpurgis snarled, staring Goku down.

"Homura called you the 'Witch of Stage Settings'…" Goku said to the beast. "Well… I'm dropping the curtain on this show!"

He shot forward, flying low over the ground. As he got in close, he dodged an attempt to smash him into the ground and then began to unleash a storm of ultra-speed punches and kicks to Form-3 Walpurgis' midsection, lifting her into the air by the force of his assault. This continued for several seconds, Walpurgis left helpless as she was slowly pushed further and further up, Goku's super-powerful and lightning-fast blows propelling her. Goku then hit with a powerful kick that sent Walpurgis careening upward with great speed, toward the 'top' of the pocket realm. He reappeared in her path, striking with a hammer blow that sent her hurtling straight down, crashing hard into the ground below. Then, Goku dove down at her, two swirling spheres of golden _ki_ in his hands – Rasengans (Naruto had managed to finish teaching him the technique just yesterday) hypercharged by Super Saiyan 3 power. With a fierce cry he slammed both orbs of power into his foe, leaping away as they detonated, twin swirling vortices of golden energy engulfing the huge beast. A shockwave raced out, and the pocket realm cracked with the sound of shattering glass, beginning to come apart and return everyone to the dimension-shifted city. Goku landed on his feet amongst the others.

"That oughtta do it" he said.

Suddenly, however, there was a surge of dark power as a 'pillar' of Darkness shot up into the sky from Walpurgis' crater. The Darkness coalesced into a huge sphere of dark purple and black, seething and roiling in the air above the city as it began to steadily grow. Down below, everyone could feel the terrible power developing within.

"The hell is going on?" Kyōko said. "How can it be even stronger?-!"

"This is going to be bad" Shepard said.

"Magnificent, isn't she?"

Everyone turned to the source of the voice, seeing a lone figure in a hooded black robe calmly walking toward them. The hood was lowered, revealing Xehanort's Heartless.

"Multiple powerful Heartless, merged together over decades or centuries of time, to form a beast of incredible power…" he said. "A being of extraordinary destructive power… and yet, we found a way to give her even more."

"You…" Homura's eyes widened. "You caused her difference in this iteration?"

"It was you who gave us the idea, child. One of my Shadow minions listened in when you explained your long and arduous journey to your compatriots. And my Whole Self had an idea, which he had his younger self, with his power over time, implement: if Kaname could gain power by having the threads of fate from multiple timelines linked to her…" he grinned, and looked up at Walpurgis' 'coccoon'. "What's to stop the same thing from being done with a few timelines' worth of _her_?"

Homura went pale as the implications set in. Young Xehanort had given Walpurgis the combined power of at least some of her previous timeline incarnations. And if just one timeline's worth took a Super Saiyan 3 to beat…

"Oh, hell…" Twilight Sparkle whispered as she too put two and two together.

The massive sphere of Darkness in the sky began to crack, like an egg hatching. There was a faint echo of a deep growl. Then, the sphere shattered, a shockwave of power racing out. Xehanort's Heartless leapt away. Goku teleported everyone from their perilous spot just beneath the rupturing sphere to a more open area a kilometer away, and everyone able then combined their powers to form a large and powerful dome shield over the group, just in time. The shockwave knocked tall buildings over for over two kilometers out, flattening everything and battering the shield. Mercifully, they were all still in a Dimension-Shift Barrier that encompassed the entire city, so no mundanes were killed and all the property damage didn't "really" happen. But the display of power still spoke volumes.

Once the shockwaves had abetted and the dome-shield lowered, everyone looked up at the monster that had emerged. Walpurgis was of the same size and shape as she'd been in the 'memory footage' from Homura (i.e., a _kaiju_-sized doll-looking thing), but she was already 'right-side up', the massive gears were nowhere in sight, the usual vacant smile was replaced by an angry frown, hands with sharp nails/claws stuck out from the poofy sleeves on her arms, and in terms of colors white had become gray and blue had become deep purple. In the center of her chest was the emblem of the Heartless. And her power level was _enormous_.

"We are so boned" Marie said.

"I can't beat something that powerful even with Super Saiyan 3" Goku said as he shifted back to SS2. "Might as well conserve my energy a little."

Scores of Heartless and Unversed began to appear, ranging from cannon fodder foot-soldiers to boss-level foes and duplicates of defeated Witches, all coming into being at the Witch Queen's command, as she stared down at the little insects who dared challenge her.

"Alright, everyone, this is it!" Teana shouted as her chakra surged. "Pull out all the stops on this one!"

Everyone readied themselves, some making ready to fight Walpurgis and the others to take on the horde. Homura stared at the abomination as she channeled her magic, looking to the side and meeting eyes with Madoka, who nodded. Suddenly, though, a barrage of Darkness blasts came in from above, and not from Walpurgis, forcing everyone to scatter. Homura came to a spot near Sora and Shepard, the others spread out in other groups which were quickly making their way to each other. Before this trio could move to rejoin the others, however, a translucent magical barrier sprang up around them, trapping them.

"That 'Walpurgis' will consume this world's Heart" Xehanort's Heartless said as he walked toward them in the barrier. "Your friends will try to defeat her, but against such power they will fail. You three, however, get the honor of being dealt with by me."

"Get out of our way" Homura growled as her _Magia Erebea_ runes lit up, her desire – her _need_ – to get back to Madoka's side near-overpowering.

"No, I don't believe I'll be doing that."

"We _will_ get past you" Shepard said, Biotics flaring. "One way or another."

(FINAL BOSS(ES) MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep _– "Dismiss")

Xehanort's Heartless chuckled grimly as he summoned 'his' Keyblade. "Let's see you try."

Out in the 'main' battleground, some of the group's heavier hitters – Goku, Vegeta, Naruto, Sasuke, Nanoha, Fate, Negi, Evangeline, Teana, Marie, Aqua, Subaru, Cadence, and Madoka – had broken off a little to engage Walpurgis, while everyone else – the other _Puellae_, Theta Team, the rest of Gamma & Sigma Teams, the Autobots, Sonic, Samus, the rest of Team Shepard, the rest of Team Naruto, and the rest of the Equestria group – prepared to take on the horde of 'lesser' foes. As the 'Witch-Killer' group flew up (even with Eva's Resort helping, Naruto and Sasuke had barely managed to nail down chakra-based flight from Goku & Vegeta's teachings yesterday; Subaru, Aqua, and Madoka had been only slightly quicker in learning magic-based flight) to meet Walpurgis, and Goku & Vegeta made the opening move, the two Ascended Super Saiyans unleashing a hail of _ki_ blasts. Despite the tremendous destructive force of this barrage, though, the Witch Queen looked completely unharmed.

Sora raised his Keyblade horizontally to block a downward strike from Xehanort's, and Shepard struck at the human-form Heartless with a Biotic Punch, only for it to be blocked by the shadowy Guardian that always accompanied the 'man'. Homura, though, took the opportunity, landing a kick that sent Xehanort's Heartless tumbling back. He regained control, hand-springing into a controlled landing on his feet, and then conjured a barrage of Darkness bolts. Shepard formed a Biotic gravity-distortion field that altered their trajectories, sending them wildly off-course, and Sora then fired a wave of Light-type _Sagitta Magica_; Xehanort's Heartless deflected half of them with his Keyblade, while his Guardian blocked the rest. XH then flash-stepped in, appearing behind Shepard with blade readied, only for his neck-targeting slash to be blocked by Homura's shield; the young _Magi_ then countered with a fire-wreathed punch to the gut. XH warped back… and the plasma grenade Homura had stuck to his Guardian's face detonated; during the few seconds it took the shadowy being to reform, Sora landed a solid combo of blows before leaping back to dodge the Guardian's claws.

Two huge energy arrows – one from Madoka's bow, one from Teana's _Susanō_ – impacted Walpurgis in the torso, exploding with great force, but there was nothing more than some slight singeing to show for it. In two huge bursts of smoke, Nanoha and Naruto summoned Gamabunta and Gamahiro; the two sword-wielding giant toads leapt into the fray, grappling with Walpurgis, who managed to outmuscle the two of them at the same time and launch them back. A pillar of pink light signaled Caro summoning Voltaire, and the ancient Dragon Lord formed his White Dragonfire Sword and charged in, using the blade to block a swing of the super-Heartless' claws and then deal a wide diagonal slash that left a trail of white fire across the entity's chest, but this too did little damage. Fate's Jet Zanbar and Negi's Titan-Slayer just bounced off, while a _Gōenkyū_ to the eye from Teana didn't even earn a flinch.

Xehanort's Heartless skidded backward, retaining his footing even after being hit by a Biotic Throw from Shepard. He retaliated by summoning four floating spheres, each of which fired a thin red laser at the hero trio. After a few seconds of dodging or blocking, a Strike Raid from Sora destroyed two of them, a Warp from Shepard took out another, and Homura's _Katon: Kakyū_ destroyed the last. Sora got in close, his body blurring with motion as he unleashed an Ars Arcanum attack, battering Xehanort's Heartless' guard. On the final blow of the combo, he dealt a solid hit, but was then backhanded clear across the battlefield by XH, while XH's Guardian batted away an Incinerate from Shepard. Homura rushed in, pulling a Jiralhanae gravity hammer from her shield's subspace storage, and unleashed a storm of bone-pulverizing blows, XH's shield spell being chipped away by the hits until she nailed his Guardian in the upper chest with it and then swung at his head. He brought his Keyblade up to block it just in time, and he grinned evilly as he placed a palm in front of her chest, a lethal Darkness burst charging. Homura froze time, reappearing several meters away just as a blast shot through where her heart had been an instant ago.

Walpurgis pitched forward, caught off-guard, as a hypersonic beam of molten metal crashed against her back. As the beam cut out to reveal a glowing-hot scorched patch on her back, the _Normandy II_ swooped in, firing its Thanix Cannon again. But this time the Witch Queen raised a shield that stopped the blow, and the attack frigate had to pull up sharply to avoid a huge retaliatory blast of Darkness. The massive Heartless then took notice of a glowing point of light down below, just as the Harmony Elements fired. The rainbow-hued beam crashed against Walpurgis, who snarled as she pushed back, slowly forcing the beam away. The six ponies below barely had time to gape in shock before, with a mighty shove, the Witch Queen 'broke' the attack, a shockwave of power pushing the beam away like water and then sending the six Bearers flying, knocked senseless; the Autobots moved to protect the girls from attacking Unversed until they could recover.

Sora's Ragnarok attack unleashed a wave of Light bolts at Xehanort's Heartless, who managed to block some but not all, though the ones that hit didn't do any serious damage. A Biotic Charge from Shepard then knocked XH back, stunning him, but his Guardian protected him from the paragon's pistol fire and Homura's quick-fired rocket. He charged at Sora, engaging the boy in a duel while the Guardian kept Homura and Shepard from interfering. Homura simply jumped back, gathered her magic, and began incanting one of her strongest new spells…

Two _Rasenshuriken_, from Naruto and Teana, came whirling through the air toward Walpurgis, hitting her in the upper back and lower front and detonating simultaneously. Two huge, powerful spheres of slicing chakra enveloped those zones, and the Witch Queen roared in fury. After the attacks dissipated, the 'flesh' of the affected areas looked marred and discolored, slashed up, but the damage still appeared to be only superficial. Sasuke extended his chakra into the charged thundercloud overhead, and several seconds later a huge blue serpentine dragon of lightning came crashing down into Walpurgis, the _Kirin_ technique hitting her with an entire storm's worth of lightning all at once. Goku and Vegeta fired a Kamehameha and a Gallick Gun at the Witch Queen as her body seized from the shock, but even after all this they only managed to blast 'small' chunks out of her.

Suddenly, there was a massive flare of chakra, and a burst of smoke that hid where Naruto had been. The huge, 120-meter-wide smoke cloud hung in the air close to the ground for a few seconds, before it was dispelled by the energy moving through it. There was now a gigantic nine-tailed fox, its fur red-orange but with gold streaks, black symbols along its body, and blue eyes; its power level was utterly humongous – in fact, it was equal to Walpurgis'. And the tips of its nine tails were all curved forward, channeling a rapidly growing sphere of black and white energy hovering before the beast's open mouth. After a few more seconds' charging time, Kurama & Naruto's _Bijūdama_ was fired. Upon impact with Walpurgis, the resulting titanic explosion lit the sky like a tiny star, the people below having to brace against the shockwave which dispelled the remaining 'lesser' enemies. When the smoke cleared, Walpurgis had a huge chunk blown out of it, but it was repairing itself at a fairly rapid rate.

"Aw, come on!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "It has that freakish power level, _and_ it can regenerate?-!"

"Yeah, but at least now we have something able to stand on equal footing against that monster" Kyōko said.

Naruto/Kurama snarled and then leapt into the fray, engaging Walpurgis in a one-on-one clash of the titans.

"Such extraordinary power…" Xehanort's Heartless mused as he watched the battle, his Guardian fending off an attempted joint attack by Sora and Shepard.

"_Palus Tempestas Incendium – Supplementum pro Armationem_!"

There was a surge of powerful magic, catching XH's attention. Homura now stood in the center of a flaming whirlwind. Her body was wreathed in bright, swirling flames, her irises having turned red and her hair turned pale gray from the high-level Fire and Wind magic's power. And her power level had at least doubled. She allowed herself a smirk before she then 'vanished', not with a time-stop but from sheer speed. She appeared right in front of Xehanort's Heartless, hitting him with a burning wind-propelled uppercut that sent him hurtling into the air, the fire and wind also tearing his clothing and setting it alight. He quickly smothered the flames and tried to regain control of his 'flight', but Homura and Sora appeared above him. Sora propelled himself downward at an angle using a well-placed magical circle-shield, hitting the Guardian with a Sonic Blade that took it out of commission, while Homura then hammered XH down into the ground at great speed, cracking the pavement on landing. Then, she fired her stored spell down, the swirling column of wind and fire blasting XH into the ground; Shepard and Sora braced themselves against the shockwave.

When the dust faded, there was a closing Dark Portal at the bottom of the new crater, with no Xehanort's Heartless in sight. He'd cut and run. The barrier came down, freeing the trio just as another clash between Naruto/Kurama and Walpurgis shook the earth. The two were evenly matched, neither able to deal a decisive blow to the other.

"This is not good" Goku said. "They can't beat her; they can only break even – a stalemate. And they can't hold that form for too long; they won't be able to take her out in time. …Vegeta, there's only one thing I can think of that can make someone who's strong enough to end this."

Vegeta stared. "What are you thinking about, Kaka… No. No! I am _not_ doing that stupid dance!"

"Vegeta, for crying out loud! This is our only shot at winning this!"

"….Aaaargh! _Fine!-!_ But anyone says anything, I'll blast them!"

"Fine, whatever, just come on!"

As the two Saiyans began flying away, trying to find a spot to perform the technique, Walpurgis spotted them and, suspecting they were up to something, broke off from Naruto/Kurama and began to charge an attack to fire at the duo… until a barrage of missiles slammed into the side of her head, interrupting her. An F22 Raptor flew in, firing its autocannon at the super-Witch, Cybertronian symbols carved into its plating. The Autobots looked on in shock.

"Is that… Starscream?" Ironhide said, flummoxed. "And he's _helping_ us? How'd he even _get_ here?"

The out-of-nowhere Decepticon shifted to his robot form, firing a missile barrage at Walpurgis' face, and then shifting to jet form and afterburning away from an attempted reprisal.

"_I'll explain myself at a later time, Autobots!_" he radioed.

"He's giving us a chance!" Goku said. "Let's do this, Vegeta!"

The two Super Saiyan 2s took position, performing the complex motions toward each other in perfect sync.

"Fuuuuuu… sion!"

And then their fingertips touched.

"HA!-!"

And a flash of golden light enveloped the battlefield. Everyone turned to stare as a golden orb rose into the sky, before shattering to reveal a single entity. He was a Super Saiyan 2, wearing white pants and an open orange-rimmed black jacket. He had a stoic, serious expression on his face, and his golden aura blazed like the sun. And his power level was one of the highest any of the onlookers had ever sensed.

"He's… He's as strong as the first Kriemhild Gretchen…" Homura said, in total awe. "As strong as the first form of the _Jūbi_…"

Gogeta stared coldly at Walpurgis. "This ends now" he said, speaking with Goku and Vegeta's voices simultaneously.

Walpurgis snarled and flew toward Gogeta, who flash-stepped forward, reappearing behind the Witch Queen. Several large 'craters' from what looked like invisible physical blows appeared on her front after he'd passed. He then flew back toward her, hitting her with two punches that stunned her heavily, and then a backflipping kick to the top of the head that sent her tumbling clear across the kilometer-wide battlefield. Walpurgis righted herself with some struggle, just in time to catch sight of Gogeta holding one arm straight up, palm facing upward. A glowing, rainbow-colored sphere of energy formed, and then compressed into a pinpoint of light that was grasped in his hand. The Witch Queen roared and charged at him, flying through the air with arm cocked back. Gogeta threw his tiny little point of light, which flew into Walpurgis' chest, disappearing. He then raised a hand to effortlessly block the Witch Queen's punch.

Then, the Stardust Breaker detonated. Light shined forth from within Walpurgis, out through her eyes and mouth. A huge burst tore her open, most of her back ceasing to exist, and the breaking down of her body spread quickly. The Witch Queen let out one last echoing scream-roar as she rapidly disintegrated into beautiful motes of light, leaving nothing behind. A lone ray of sunlight peeked through the thick clouds overhead, shining down on Gogeta.

It was over. Walpurgis was no more.

Down below, everyone else stared, shock and awe giving way to elation at their survival and victory. Madoka noticed Homura staring in disbelief a little ways away from the crowd, and started walking toward her.

(MUSIC: _Puella Magi Madoka Magica _OST 1 – "_Clementia_")

"T-This can't be right…" Homura said, sounding frazzled. "I… W-We never have a happy ending. Everyone's… alive? N-No, this can't really be happening. She's… Walpurgis is going to pop up again any second, o-or Kyubey will show up and kill one of us, or…"

"Homura…" Madoka said, standing right in front of her.

"Madoka… T-This can't really be happening. All the pain and suffering I've been through, i-it wouldn't just end like this. My suffering doesn't just… end. The universe is too cruel to me for that to happen. This… T-This has to be a dream; any second now, I'll wake up and I'll have failed again, I'll have to watch you die again and again. This… All this is too good to be true. It… I…"

Madoka smiled as she placed her hands on Homura's shoulders, pressing her forehead against the other girl's.

"It's alright, Homura. We won, and I'm alive. I know that, with all the pain you've gone through, it's hard for you to believe. But your suffering is over. We won. You won. And I'm still here."

Homura let out a quiet gasp as she felt Madoka's warm, soft hand caress her cheek, seeing those kind, beautiful eyes staring into her above that wonderful, comforting smile. Her own eyes filled with tears as it finally sank in. She'd won. After so many loops filled with suffering and death, she was finally free. Everyone was alive. Walpurgis was gone for good. Madoka was still alive and whole and happy and right there in front of her. At long last, it was finally over.

"W-We… We did it…" she whispered with a light sob. "We… won…"

And then she collapsed into Madoka's embrace and started bawling, months of stored-up pain finally releasing all at once as she held Madoka like the universe would end if she let go. The two slowly sank down to their knees, Madoka smiling, moist eyes closed in an expression of peace as she slowly, gently stroked Homura's hair and back as the black-haired girl released her emotions, crying her eyes out and sobbing Madoka's name.

After so much suffering, everything had finally gone right.

"I'm right here, Homura" Madoka whispered as she held her most precious person close. "And I always will be."

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: Wrapping up some stuff, and setting up plot threads both for Book 19 and for this Book's bonus chapter.


	9. What The Future Holds

EDIT: Apparently, the "less than" and "more than" symbols don't show up once the chapter's posted to the site.

For clarity, some power level comparisons:

'Normal' Walpurgis (less than) SS3 Goku (less than) Super-Walpurgis (equal to) 9-Tailed Fox (less than) Gogeta (equal to) 1st-Form 10 Tails (equal to) 1st-Incernation Kriemhild Gretchen (less than) Complete 10-Tails (equal to) 4th & Onward Incarnations Kriemhild Gretchen

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Groundside Warehouse Base**

**Next Day – 10:30 AM**

Everyone had already recovered from yesterday's battle; fortunately, there had been no serious injuries. A few people were still a bit full from the multitude of snacks available at last night's victory party, but nobody complained. Homura was still a little bit out of sorts; sure, she was beyond elated that her long journey was finally over, but after letting all her emotions loose yesterday in the wake of the victory, she was still automatically trying to rein them in again… and being left upset and worried that she was near-completely failing to do so. She'd been suppressing her feelings and worries and pains for so long, she'd almost forgotten what it was like to let them have free rein again, and it scared her. Fate, Naruto, and Madoka & her family were doing what they could to help Homura, telling her that it was okay for her to let her emotions be unrestrained, that it was safe for her to do so, that doing so wouldn't weaken her, and that her friends and loved ones still cared for her even if she could no longer act the way they were 'used to' her acting. They also figured that once Homura was done releasing what remained of what was stored up (which could take several days), it would be easier for her to "get a hold of herself" whenever she needed to in future fights. She was still spending almost all her time being fawned over and snuggled by Madoka, Junko, or Mami.

At the moment, Miyako was seated on a rather large and surprisingly comfy couch with Madoka, Sayaka, Kyōko, and Kyōsuke. She had arrived practically right before Walpurgis' attack, so she hadn't had too much time to get to know her fellow _Puellae_. Now they were trying to rectify that. She reminded them (thanks to their memories of previous timelines) of Homura's original personality, though with a teensy bit better self-image balanced out by slightly worse social anxiety. She got along quite well with Madoka, the pink-haired girl working to bring her out of her shell just as she once had with Homura. She also appeared quite taken with Kyōsuke, blushing a little whenever he smiled at her. Aqua had volunteered to help her broaden her range of Ice-type spells, with Evangeline claiming she'd pitch in once Miyako was 'a bit stronger'.

Elsewhere, another little conversation was starting between Twilight Sparkle, Zaeed Massani, Chisame Hasegawa, "Joker" Moreau, and Jacob Taylor.

"So…" Twilight said. "Hypothetical stuff – members of Team Shepard, and Elements of Harmony… Generosity?"

"…I've gotta say Tali" Joker replied. "The Quarians are all about putting the group ahead of the individual, giving things they have but don't need to people who need but don't have."

"I was thinking Samara" Zaeed said. "Shining example of a Justicar, giving aid to those less fortunate an' all that jazz. She's always preachin' that kinda stuff."

"Joy?" Twilight asked.

"I'd say Kasumi" Chisame replied. "The _Normandy_'s resident ray of sunshine, always trying to lighten the mood."

"Well, what about me?" Joker said. "I'm the team jokester."

"Yeah, but you don't always know when to stop" Jacob said.

"Neither does Pinkie" Twilight replied.

"Oh. Yeah, true enough…"

"Loyalty?"

Joker, Zaeed, Chisame, and Jacob looked to each other, and then back to Twilight, and all replied simultaneously: "Garrus."

"No contest" Zaeed added. "The Turian is Shepard's all-but-official Number Two – follow 'im to hell & back without so much as a word of complaint. They're like brothers."

"Kindness?"

"I think Thane fits that best" Chisame said. "Sure, he's an assassin, but when it comes down to it he's maybe got the biggest heart on the team – always looking out for the little people, and all that…"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Abandoned Area Just Outside The City**

**Same Time**

Optimus, Ironhide, and Bumblebee arrived at the designated meeting point, transforming once they confirmed there were no local humans around. Less than a minute later, Starscream appeared from a thicket of tall trees.

"What's this about, Starscream?" Optimus asked. "Why did you help us?"

Starscream looked pensive, as if trying to decide whether or not he should say anything. Finally, he decided. "I'm sick of being Megatron's sycophantic lackey. …When I joined the Decepticons, it was because it looked like Sentinel Prime and his Autobots had lost sight of what was truly important: Cybertron. I joined Megatron because it looked like he hadn't forgotten that. But… as time went on, he lost sight as well, and from all appearances _you_ did as well, Optimus. Both of you, fighting each other just for the sake of fighting, having forgotten the most important thing: our homeworld!"

"I _never_ forgot Cybertron's plight," Optimus replied, sounding a little cross, "and I never truly gave up on finding a way to save it."

"I'll believe that if I see it. But Megatron… he's lost sight even more than you have; it's as if he cares more about hurting the humans than saving our planet! Sure, he hasn't really taken any actions against the humans in quite a while, but that's probably just because he's busy cooking up some big scheme. I can't stand what he's become, but I don't have the strength to dethrone him."

"So why not leave?" Ironhide asked.

"Because there are other Decepticons like me who aren't too far gone. If I leave, they'll be at the mercy of others who want to take over but do not share my standards. I stay to minimize my brethren's casualties as best I can. …I don't care about this whole stupid war any longer. I just want to keep our species from warring itself into extinction, and maybe find a way to heal our homeworld. I at first wanted to get rid of both of you and assume control of both factions, put a stop to all the fighting, but I now realize that, adept as I am at leading troops in battle and coordinating wartime strategies, I lack the charisma and political savvy necessary to truly lead our people; the fighting would not cease for long. …I don't know why I saved you. Some tiny spark of idealistic hope for a peaceful end that hasn't been snuffed out yet, perhaps."

"Starscream…" Optimus said. "Don't be so quick to give up hope for peace. I want this war ended as much as you do."

"Then why haven't you done so already, oh 'great' Prime?"

"I've tried…" the Autobot leader said sadly. "More times than you know… If you truly care about our people, then help me save them. Work with me and help us find a way to either dispose of Megatron or convince him to sue for peace."

"What?" Starscream and Ironhide exclaimed simultaneously.

"Optimus, you can't trust him!" Ironhide said. "He's a Decepticon!"

"That sort of thinking is what got us into this mess, Ironhide" Optimus replied. "Besides, look at Jetfire. He was a Decepticon, but his conscience and morals led him to switch sides."

Ironhide couldn't think of a counter-argument, so he just grunted and nodded his head, stepping back again.

"Your subordinate is wise not to trust me straight away" Starscream said. "But how can I trust _you_, Prime? I've yet to see evidence that you are able to 'practice what you preach', as the humans say. …At this point, a peaceful resolution to the conflict appears impossible."

"In case you haven't noticed, our new friends from across the realms have made careers out of accomplishing the impossible. Starscream, I swear on my honor as a Prime that I will do everything in my power to stop the war. We all will. But we'll need your help. Please…" he extended a hand.

Starscream was silent for a while… and then he reached out.

"I'm putting a lot of trust in you, Optimus. If you betray that trust, you'll regret it… as will I."

"Don't worry. Together, with the help of the Dimensional Defense Force, we'll end this war. You'll probably have to maintain cover, pretend to still be loyal to Megatron, once you return to our Earth, to gather information on what Megatron and his fellows are planning, but for now… Welcome to the Autobots, Starscream."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Back At Base**

**Two Hours Later**

Many of the group were out back in the old warehouse's walled-off parking lot, which had been set up with shades and the like to make an extension of the base. Col. Holland walked onto the scene, several saluting him as he passed. He called for attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we've received intelligence that suggests something's getting ready to happen on the Autobots' Earth."

Several people, including Chisame, Marie, Mami, and Bumblebee, paid close attention.

"There's been a few oddly-timed deaths, all involving current or former members of that Earth's space program. In addition, we've acquired some footage which reveals that Megatron has a new heavy-hitter."

He brought up his Omnitool, projecting a large holoscreen showing somewhat grainy footage taken from a security camera. The last instant of footage showed a massive figure step into view and blast the camera. The footage was reversed, paused, and cleaned up, revealing a Decepticon with horn-like fins on his head, a single large red eye, and a massive cannon for a right arm.

"Shockwave has surfaced."

A few people gasped; Bumblebee 'said' a voice clip of The Heavy from _Team Fortress 2_ saying "Oh, this is _bad_!"

"Damn it…" Chisame said. "If this incarnation of Shockwave is anything like the others, he's one of the strongest and most dangerous Decepticons of them all."

"He is" Ironhide replied gravely. "Shockwave is one of the Cons' most accomplished – and most ruthless – shock-troops. He's a killing machine; the only things he feels are bloodlust and rage. It's said that even Megatron can only partially control him."

"We'd better head over there next to head Megs off at the pass" Marie said. "Whatever the Deceps are planning, it can't be good for anyone."

"One other thing" Holland said. "Commander Shepard?"

"Yes, sir?"

"An ONI operative working in your Realm recently sent us information that Dr. T'Soni could use to track down the Shadow Broker. We recommend you bring it to her as soon as possible."

"I'll make that a priority."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Most of the on-world personnel would be staying here for a few days to make sure things settled down. The Autobots headed back to their Earth to make ready for whatever was coming. And the _Normandy II_, carrying a handful of non-crewmember volunteers, jumped out, returning to its home realm, and bound for Illium.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next Time: Bonus Chapter – Lair of the Shadow Broker


	10. Lair Of The Shadow Broker

PLEASE SEE CHAPTER ONE FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**ME-Verse**

**Crescent Nebula, Tasale System, Illium**

Dr. Liara T'Soni, up-and-coming information broker extraordinaire, looked up from her terminal as Shepard entered her office.

"Shepard," she said, "what can I do for you?"

Shepard had a seat, pulling out a datapad. "ONI found and gave me data on how to find the Shadow Broker. Interested?"

"Absolutely!" She stood up. "I had no idea… Let me see what you've got!"

Liara grabbed the datapad.

"It looks like a leaked transmission between Shadow Broker operatives. Some hints as to the location, and…"

The image changed to a Drell.

"It's about Feron" Liara said, eyes lighting up. "He's still alive."

"Your friend?" Shepard asked. "The one who helped recover my body from the Shadow Broker?"

"The same. He sacrificed himself to save me. I'd never found anything suggesting he was alive. After two years, I hadn't even dreamed…"

"Sounds like you and he were close."

"It's funny. He betrayed me more than once. He was double-dealing for Cerberus, for the Shadow Broker… But in the end, he sacrificed himself for me. I owe him."

"Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. What's the next step?"

"I… I don't know. I need to prepare, to think. I'm going home. Use my terminal if you need any local intel."

"You okay?" he asked as she headed for the door.

"I've spent two years plotting revenge. Now I have the chance to make it a rescue."

"Let me help. I'll come by your apartment this evening?"

"Okay. Hopefully I'll have a plan by then. Thank you, Shepard."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Liara's Apartment**

**1745 Hours (Local Time)**

It was a confusing sight that greeted Team Shepard when they arrived at the apartment: Nos Astra police officers were all over the place, with the entrance cordoned off by a holographic 'Do Not Cross' line. Shepard had brought along Garrus, Samara, and a DDF volunteer – a fairly-endowed young woman wearing dark blue jeans with (armored) brown boots, a light-brown jacket over a midriff-baring green shirt, and a brown Stetson hat, with straw-blonde hair, green eyes, and a few freckles on her slightly-tanned skin. Anyone with sufficient magical sensitivity (of which there were none amongst the NAPD detachment) would detect a thorough Transformation Spell on her – her current human form was not her true one.

"What's going on here?" Shepard asked the NAPD Sergeant near the door.

"This area is sealed off" she replied. "Please step back, sir."

"I'm Commander Jason Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics & Recon. My friend, Dr. Liara T'Soni, lives here. She & I were working on something together, and she told us to meet her here at this time. What's happened?"

"Someone tried to kill your friend, Commander Shepard" a new voice replied.

The woman descended the stairs – an Asari in blue armor. "Thank you, Officer" she said. "Your people are dismissed."

"Y-You can't do that!" the officer said as Group Shepard walked through the holographic ticker-tape.

"Already done. With two Spectres and a Justicar on-scene, your people are no longer necessary."

As the officers left, the Asari turned to Shepard. "Tela Vasir, Special Tactics & Recon" she introduced herself.

"A Spectre?" Shepard asked.

"I heard your status was reinstated. Good. You're one of our most famous operatives. Might even get you to sign my chestplate. So, I assume you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?"

"Liara was following a lead on the Shadow Broker."

"That's a dangerous enemy to have."

"What are the facts so far?"

"About 25 minutes ago, someone took a shot at T'Soni." She gestured to the cracked glass of the large window overlooking the city. "She stuck around for almost four minutes before leaving the building. Whatever she was doing was important."

"Did the police find anything when they arrived?"

"Just the mess and the bullet holes. I gave them a gold star for finding the bullet holes."

"Liara was expecting me. She would have left a message here – her office wasn't safe."

"I'm not surprised. Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes. I haven't found anything useful for tracking her down yet. You know her better than I do. Where would she have hidden her backups?"

"Lemme take a look around."

The group spread out, looking for clues. AJ tilted her head in confusion while looking at a fragmented Prothean artifact on display, while Samara checked out a photo of "the old team".

"The rifle used to do this wasn't standard-issue" Garrus said, inspecting the bullet holes. "The kinetic barrier deflected the shots, but they still managed to penetrate the glass."

The search turned up random knickknacks, like a painting of Ilos and a portion of Shepard's (badly damaged) old armor. Finally, up in the loft next to Liara's bed, Shepard found a picture of the _Normandy I_… and when he picked it up, the picture changed to an image of the Prothean dig-site on Eden Prime, where the damaged beacon had been found and started Shepard's journey.

"The frame must be keyed to your ID" Vasir said.

"A Prothean dig-site… Liara _did_ leave a message."

Another quick search led them to one of the Prothean artifacts in a display case at the base of the stairs. When Shepard touched it, a small hidden compartment opened up, ejecting a small circular data disk. They took it over to the apartment's terminal and slid it in, showing a recording of a Salarian.

"_What have you got for me, Sekat?_" Liara's voice asked.

"_It was tricky, but you paid for the best. I can narrow it down to a cluster, maybe even a system._"

"_How soon can you have it?_"

"_Shouldn't take long. Come by my office – Baria Frontiers, in the Dracon Trade Center. Gotta say, though, T'Soni – you're making me a little nervous. How big is the trouble that could come out of this?_"

"_Relax, Sekat. I'll see you in a few hours._"

"This must be important" Shepard said. "The Shadow Broker's people have already tried to kill her once."

"I know where the Trade Center is" Vasir said. "My car's outside. Come on."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Dracon Trade Center**

**25 Minutes Later**

The bronze-colored skycar set down in a parking lot in front of the tower. People of various species milled about outside. As the car set down and everyone got out (Garrus, Samara, and AJ had squeezed in back, and were thankful to be able to stretch their legs again), everything looked peaceful.

"The Baria Frontiers offices are located on the third floor" Vasir said. "I don't hear police chatter; we must've missed the party."

Suddenly, several powerful explosions ripped through the building's lower floors. Glass shattered, stone & metal warped and collapsed, and people's lives were snuffed out. Team Shepard was thrown off their feet by the blast.

"By the Goddess…" Samara murmured.

"Killin' all these folk just to silence one woman…" Applejack muttered. "What the hell kinda people are we dealin' with here?"

"They just took out three floors just to try and ensure she's dead!" Vasir said. "I'll go up in the skycar and seal off the building from the top!"

"We'll start down here and work out way up" Shepard replied as Vasir got in her car.

"Just leave some for me" she said as her vehicle took off.

"Weapons ready," Shepard ordered, "just in case."

The other three nodded – Samara and Garrus readied their M8 Avengers, while AJ unholstered the two M6E pistols she'd brought along, also ensuring the M90A shotgun slung across her back was ready. The team entered the building, moving through rubble, smoke, and sparks from severed wires.

"The elevators and building security are disabled" Garrus said, observing a terminal.

"_No alarms, no police_" Vasir said. "_Very professional._"

On the second floor, they found a dying employee, who mentioned mercenaries and bombs before expiring from his wounds.

"This man was killed by bullets, not a blast" Samara said.

"Watch yourself, Vasir" Shepard said. "They've got military-grade hardware."

Up more stairs and into the Baria Frontiers entrance, Shepard inspected the sign-in terminal. "I'm at the BF office" he said. "Liara signed in just a few minutes ago."

"_Understood, Shepard._"

As the quartet moved into the offices, a small object rolled across the ground. Garrus' eyes widened as he recognized it.

"Flashbang!" the Turian shouted.

The team took cover, closing & averting their eyes, while (something either technological, magical, or magitek that the author couldn't decide on) auto-triggered to protect their hearing. As soon as the flashbang grenade went off, soldiers in full armor and with voice modulators came pouring out, opening fire on them.

"Vasir, we've got mercs, and they're well-armed!"

"_Say hello to the Shadow Broker's private army, Commander._"

Shepard and Garrus used their sniper rifles to start picking Broker Agents off. Samara tossed out a Biotic Pull that yanked two of them into the sights of AJ's pistols, and the farmgirl gunned them down. The team made their way along the hall, going left and moving past a burning hole in the building's side, AJ's shotgun making short work of an enemy Vanguard. They looped around through the offices, Shepard using an Overload/Warp combo to take out an enemy Engineer while the other three dealt with the foot soldiers.

The next corner led to a stairway blocked off by fire from damaged pipes; it was easy enough, though, to find and trigger the fire suppression systems and move on. The next floor held a few more troops that Samara and Garrus easily dealt with. As they neared Sekat's office, they heard a single pistol shot from inside. The door opened to reveal Vasir, gun drawn and pointed at where the now-dead-and-on-the-floor Broker agent's skull had been a second ago. In the corner, slumped against the wall, was a dead Salarian, his chest blown open by a shotgun blast.

"Damn it" Vasir said. "If I'd been a few seconds faster, I could've stopped them."

"Is this Sekat?" Shepard inspected the body.

"Must've been."

"No sign of that data Liara talked about. Looks like a dead end."

"So~…" Vasir said. "Did you find your friend's body?"

"You mean this body?" Liara said as she stepped out from the shadows, pointing her gun at Vasir.

"Liara?" Shepard said. "This is Tela Vasir, a Spectre."

"I know. She's also the woman who tried to kill me."

"You've had a rough day," Vasir said as she slowly backed toward the large window, "so I'll let that slide. Now why don't you put that gun down?"

"I saw you! I doubled back after I left. I watched you break into my apartment!"

"I _knew_ we couldn't trust you" AJ said as he drew her shotgun, pointing it at Vasir. "Had a bad feelin' the second I laid eyes on ya."

"You didn't know where Liara went," Shepard summed up as he, Garrus, and Samara readied weapons, "because she hid the message. You used me to find it for you."

"Thanks for the help" Vasir replied with a smirk.

"Once she had my location," Liara said, "she signaled the Shadow Broker's forces. They bombed the building to take me out. She found Sekat, took his data, and murdered him. I'm guessing she's still got the disk on her."

"Good guess" Vasir said as she showed the data-disk in her hand, while her other hand went behind her back. "Not that you'll ever see what's on it…"

A flare of Biotic power from Vasir's hidden hand shattered the window.

"…you _Pureblood bitch!_"

She threw her hand forward, launching a barrage of razor-sharp glass shards at the group. Liara formed a Biotic Barrier to protect everyone, and Shepard ran out after Vasir, tackling her out the window. The two struggled as they fell, ending with Vasir kicking Shepard down into the ground and slowing her own fall with her Biotics. Liara leapt down after her, the younger Asari chasing the fallen Spectre as she ran, quickly taking out the two Broker mooks who tried to get in her way.

As Shepard got back onto his feet, more Broker Agents came pouring out from the far door. Samara hovered down to join him and then used her Biotics to safely lower Garrus and AJ down as well. Garrus used his sniper rifle to pick off about half of them from afar, and they then mowed through the rest while on the move, running to catch up with Liara. They hurried down to the first floor, fighting through the enemy infantry in the lobby; Shepard and Samara did most of the heavy lifting. They rushed out to the parking lot, just in time to catch sight of Vasir remote-summoning her skycar, leaping in, and speeding off into the sky. Not missing a beat, Liara commandeered a nearby taxicab; Shepard got in the driver's seat, while Garrus, Samara, and Applejack (shifting back to her smaller real form to give the other two more room) piled into the back. The vehicle closed up and took off in hot pursuit.

The two vehicles sped through the skyscrapers of Nos Astra, Shepard's never losing sight of Vasir's for more than half a second. They moved through an under-construction building, down a crowded highway, and between two freighters that were moving to dock with each other, into a major skyway.

"Traffic!" Liara shouted. "Oncoming traffic!"

"We'll be fine" Shepard said as he piloted the skycar through deft maneuvers in his pursuit.

Vasir started dropping proximity charges, and Shepard threw the skycar through some sharp and sudden moves to dodge them. As he chased her into another tunnel, Broker-piloted troop transports joined in.

"What kinda guns does this thing have?" he asked Liara.

"It's a taxi; it has a fare meter!"

"Wonderful…"

"Truck."

"I know."

"Truck!"

"I know!"

Liara screamed as the car came within meters of a crashing transport in the tunnel.

"_There_ we go!"

"You're _enjoying_ this!"

As they moved back into another skyway, flying against traffic, the poor trio in the backseat held on for dear life, dodging and weaving through oncoming cars at a worrying speed.

"Is Shepard's driving normally this… volatile?" Samara asked Garrus, paying little mind to the fact Applejack was clinging to her desperately.

"Oh, yeah, definitely!" Garrus replied, one hand with a death-grip on the handle above his door. "This is just like old times! You should see what he can do with an M35 Mako!"

"Yeah, well," AJ said, "all I know is, after this I'm never gonna harp on RD when she brags about those high-speed aerial obstacle courses again-_SWEET FAUNA LUSTER!-!_"

The skycar performed a barrel roll to avoid an oncoming truck, its roof passing about a foot from the larger vehicle. A pursuing Broker Agent vehicle couldn't follow suit, bouncing off the transport and slamming into a skyscraper.

"A head-on collision at this speed…" Liara said nervously.

"Yeah, I hear those can be bad for you" Shepard snarked.

They went right (dodging another truck), keeping Vasir's vehicle in sight. Suddenly, Garrus rolled down his window and pulled out his Mantis, leaning out and taking aim. After a few seconds he fired, the bullet hitting something vital in Vasir's car's thrusters, sending it drifting to the right… where it made a glancing blow against an oncoming skycar, sending it hurtling off to the side, smoke spewing from its engine. It came to an abrupt stop just outside a hotel parking lot, sliding a few dozen meters along a balcony. Shepard brought their skycar around, setting down in the lot, catching sight of Vasir running/limping deeper into the area as he was setting down.

"She can't have gotten far" Liara said as everyone disembarked (AJ taking human form again and readying her pistols).

"Reinforcements inbound!" Garrus pointed out a pair of incoming Broker Agent transports. "They're trying to slow us down!"

Shepard tossed out a Shockwave Chain that sent the first transport's troopers flying just as the vehicle set down; they were left easy pickings for Liara and Garrus. The next few minutes were spent fighting off dozens of Broker Agents, coming in by half a dozen transports one at a time. Finally, one transport lost control and slammed into the barricade of the nearby building, knocking it over and making an opening.

"Come on!" Liara said. "We can climb over and get to Vasir's car."

They moved up, heading into an apartment; three destroyed LOKI mechs were on the living room floor, and some slightly… risqué entertainment was playing on a big-screen television.

"What kinda 'hotel' is this?" Shepard asked.

"Azure" Liara replied. "It's a luxury resort with an… exotic edge. 'Azure' is slang for a part of the Asari body in some areas of Illium."

"Where?"

"Mainly the lower reaches, near the bottom."

"I meant, 'Where on the Asari body?'"

"So did I."

They left the apartment and headed over to the crashed car, finding large drops of bluish-purple leading away from the crash.

"Asari blood" Samara said. "Her injuries will betray her location to us."

"And her injuries should slow her down" Garrus added.

They followed the blood trail through another apartment and down a path leading to an outdoor diner.

"It's over, Vasir" Liara said as she and the rest of the team pointed weapons.

Vasir stopped walking, growled, and then in a flash of motion she grabbed a random human woman, wrapping an arm around her neck and holding her as a shield while drawing her own gun. The other patrons panicked and ran.

"What's your name, hun?" Vasir said to her hostage.

"M-Mariana" the woman whimpered.

"Mariana… You wanna live, don't you? Tell those people you want to live."

"Please…"

"We'll get you out of here safely, Mariana" Shepard said.

"Well, that's good to hear" Vasir snarked. "All you had to do was just walk away, Shepard. Now it gets ugly." She put her pistol to Mariana's head.

"Please" Mariana sobbed. "I have a son."

"A son? I hope he gets to see you again. I've heard losing a parent is just _horrific_ for children – scars 'em for life."

"I'm going to pulverize every bone in your body" Liara growled.

"It's okay, Liara" Shepard said. "We'll handle this. The usual way."

"You want Mariana's little boy to grow up without a mommy, Shepard?" Vasir shouted. "Thermal clips on the ground, now. Power cells, too."

"Is that it?"

"What?"

"Vasir… I sacrificed hundreds of human lives to save the _Destiny Ascension_. I stopped Saren from growing his own private army of Krogans by setting off a nuke in the middle of his base. I spared the last Rachni Queen so that her children could live again in this galaxy! So for your sake, I hope your escape plan doesn't hinge on me hesitating to shoot a hostage!"

"You're bluffing."

"Well… not exactly 'bluffing'. More like… stalling."

And then the table that Liara had, unnoticed by Vasir, Biotically picked up came hurtling in from behind and the side, slamming into Vasir and knocking her into the nearby pond. Garrus motioned for Mariana to run for it, and she did. After a few seconds, Vasir came leaping/hovering out of the water, her body glowing blue and a look of raw, bloodthirsty rage on her face. She Biotic-Charged across the courtyard, appearing on a raised area overlooking Team Shepard, and pulled out her M15 Vindicator rifle.

Everyone dove for cover as Vasir opened fire on AJ, Liara, and Garrus while firing a pair of Warps at Samara and Shepard. Liara and AJ returned fire with their pistols, but Vasir's shields deflected their shots, and she forced them back into cover before they could bring her shields down. Shepard Biotic-Charged in next to her, firing his Tempest SMG at close range. This took her shields down and started chewing through her thick armor, but she let out a pulse of Biotic energy that staggered him, and then Charged up onto a balcony of the nearby building. Rocket drones came flying in, opening fire; Shepard and Garrus used Overloads to bring them down. At the same time, a Broker Agent transport landed on the far side; Liara tossed out a Singularity that grabbed the disembarking troops, leaving Samara and AJ free to cut them down.

Vasir leapt back into the fray, and quickly had to fend off an assault from Samara, the Justicar and the Rogue Spectre getting into a Biotic showdown, appearing evenly matched. They segued into a Biotic Push-of-war, which Samara was slowly winning. With one final shove she sent Vasir tumbling across the courtyard, draining her shields and stunning her. Garrus moved to attack, but Vasir made a blind Charge backward to get some distance, by pure luck avoiding a smack into a wall. She surrounded herself with a Biotic Barrier long enough for her shields to recharge, and then hit a Warp from Shepard with one of her own, the two masses of Biotic energy canceling each other out.

A shotgun blast from behind heavily drained Vasir's shields, and a second follow-up shot drained them the rest of the way and damaged her armor. She spun around and Biotically gripped Applejack by the throat, lifting her off the ground. AJ tried and failed to breathe as it felt like a super-strong hand was constricting around her neck, crushing her windpipe. She flailed and kicked, starting to panic. Then Garrus' fist impacted the side of Vasir's head, knocking her to the side, and AJ dropped back to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. Vasir Biotic-Charged up to a higher level again, as another wave of rocket drones and a transport full of Broker Agents flew in. Samara and Liara used a Singularity/Warp combo to create a Biotic explosion that took out the mooks, while Garrus and Shepard again used their Overload modules to down the rocket drones.

When Vasir reappeared again, Liara was ready for her. A Biotic Punch sent the rogue Spectre reeling, and Liara followed up with a barrage of close-range fire from her SMG, chipping through Vasir's shields and armor. Vasir pulled off a Biotic Charge to get away, only to appear right in front of AJ, who lashed out with a punch to her midsection; even in her present human form, she still had her real form's super-strength, so her blow cracked Vasir's armor like an egg and nearly caved her chest in. Weakened, Vasir was unable to avoid the dozen or so rounds that Shepard and Samara put into her. She staggered back into a wall, sliding down it into a slumped/sitting position, her blood slowly pooling beneath her.

Liara walked up to the still-struggling Vasir, grabbing Sekat's data-disk from her.

"This is what we need to find the Shadow Broker" she said.

"You're dead!" Vasir said in a ragged voice. "The Shadow Broker has been in power for decades. He's stronger than anything you've ever faced!"

"Is that why you sold out the Council to work for him?" Shepard asked, glaring.

"You think I betrayed the Council, like Saren?-! Go to hell! The Broker's given me damn good intel over the years – intel that saved lives and kept the Citadel safe! So if the Broker needs a few people to disappear, I'll pay that price without hesitation!"

"Spectres don't blow up buildings filled with innocent people!"

"Sure we do. We get our hands dirty so the Council doesn't have to. The councilors might complain about our methods to soothe their consciences, but they never look too closely. Besides, you're with Cerberus. You have any idea what your terrorist friends have done?"

"You haven't heard, then? First off, I was never working for Cerberus; it was a collaboration to reach a shared goal, to stop the Collectors, and was never intended to be permanent. Second, I am fully aware of and disgusted by a lot of their past actions; I killed a few handfuls of their people back during my hunt for Saren. And finally, I'm not with them anymore. I cut ties with them after The Illusive Man and I had one too many ethical disagreements. I'm exclusively with the Dimensional Defense Force now.

"So your attempts to gain the moral high ground aren't going to work, Vasir. You betrayed the spirit of what Spectres are supposed to do. You murdered dozens of innocent people to try to kill _one_ woman, not because she was a threat to galactic stability, but because you were _hired_ to by a paranoid information broker who sees living, thinking, feeling beings as disposable assets. …I'm going to give detailed info on everything that's happened to the Council, so they'll know that you became a mercenary, a traitor, a mass-murderer just because the Shadow Broker paid you to. They'll know that, in the end, you were _just as bad as Saren_."

Vasir growled, trying to call Biotic power to her hand, when suddenly a single bullet tore through her skull, killing her instantly. Garrus holstered his sidearm, and he & the rest of the group moved on to catch up to Liara.

-_Mini-Break_-

"_Eliminate T'Soni and retrieve the data_" an impossibly deep voice ordered in the recorded conversation. "_Civilian casualties not a concern._"

"Vasir's dead" Shepard said to Liara as she deactivated her Omnitool.

"I'm putting the data through to the _Normandy-2_'s computers" Liara said. "We can be at the Shadow Broker's base in a few hours. He'll know about Vasir before long. If he decides to kill Feron…"

They kept talking as they started walking back to the car.

"We'll get Feron out of there alive, Liara" Shepard replied. "I promise."

"I know. You're here to help, just like always."

"That's not a good thing?"

"When we first met on Therum, you saved me from the Heretic Geth. You fought a Krogan Battlemaster while I cowered. Now you're doing it again, and I'm still leaning on you for help."

"That's what friends do, Liara."

"…I can get us there, based on Sekat's data. The _Normandy_'s stealth drive will keep them from detecting us. The Shadow Broker's agents are still shooting their way through Illium. With luck, they won't notice we've left until it's too late."

"That's a little cold. They killed innocent people."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I? When I hit the ground back at the trade center, you went after Vasir without a backward look."

"I knew there was no way a little fall like that would kill _you_, Shepard. I had to stay on Vasir. I had to stay rational, make the call… like I did with Sekat."

"That was Vasir's fault, not yours."

"Sekat had no idea what the stakes were. I put him in harm's way to get the data I needed. I got him killed. And I'd do it again. But from here on out, things will be simple – get in, get Feron, get out. And kill anyone who tries to stop us."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Hourglass Nebula, Sowilo System, Hagalaz**

**DATA: **"_Hagalaz is a second-tier garden world that receives little attention from the galactic community. A Salarian mining expedition initially discovered the planet, which was promptly strong-armed away from them by organized crime figures. Hagalaz's exploration rights were then sold to the highest bidder, which led to a brief burst of mining colonies in the 2000s, but most of those were abandoned when other planets were found with more accessible resources. _

_Though Hagalaz has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere capable of supporting life, its rotational period is slower than Earth's, making its day and night 98 Earth hours long. The intense heat on one side of the planet and the extreme cold on the other make for violent storm cells wherever the sun is rising or setting. As a result, the flora and fauna of Hagalaz have developed the capability to live in cycles of ice, flooding, baking heat, and dramatic air pressure changes. The biota of the planet has been largely unexploited by the exotic pet and gardening trades, since simulating their natural conditions is problematic for the average consumer._"

A UT47 'Kodiak' shuttle flew through the tempestuous storm, carrying Shepard, Liara, and – from the DDF – Ishtar Solos, who was checking her blaster cannon while resting against her shield. Soon, a large ship came into view, flying high in the skies amongst the storm clouds, a massive shield-looking thing of sorts at the rear.

"Hagalaz" Liara said. "The oceans boil during the day, then snap-freeze ten minutes after sundown."

"The Shadow Broker lives in this?" Shepard asked.

"His ship follows the sunset. It's completely undetectable in the storm… unless you know where to look."

"How do we get inside?"

"The shuttle bay is locked down. We'll need to land on the ship's hull and hunt for a hatch. But we can't stay outside for long. There's a constant thunderstorm where the hot and cold air collide."

The Kodiak flew in close to a flat portion of the ship's top near the bow, being buffeted by the winds as it hovered a meter or so above the hull. The hatch opened, and out hopped Team Shepard (all of them in hazard-sealed armor). Once its cargo was dropped off, the Kodiak immediately bugged out, letting the wind carry it out.

"It's hard to pinpoint in this lightning," Liara said, "but I'm picking up signals from a communications array near the back of the ship."

They moved down a 'level', making their way along a catwalk, and a pair of red electronic spheres emerged, blasting at them with electric shocks before Shepard destroyed them with an Overload.

"Maintenance drones" he said. "Why were they attacking?"

"They must think we're debris from the storm" Liara replied.

They made their way a little further down and then up, moving along the ship's spine. Up ahead, two angled-back fins with glowing bases. A lightning bolt struck one, and the glow grew brighter; an instant later, a powerful discharge of electricity shot out in all directions except down from the fin, and its base went dark.

"Be careful" Liara said. "Those capacitors discharge built-up lightning."

Up ahead, a squad of Broker Agents emerged, firing a few shots at Team Shepard. Shepard fired a single pistol round at the charged capacitor, and it discharged its stored electricity into the enemy troopers, frying them. With the way clear, they hurried past the capacitors and down to the ship's right (their left) walkway again; two blasts from Ishtar's cannon took out the LOKI mechs that tried to stop them. The next bend brought them before another squad of troopers… who happened to be right next to a charged capacitor, so that problem was taken care of quickly. A huge fin was in their way, but the turning of a switch made it retract. The trio made their way across the ship and down to the portside catwalk, fighting through a few more LOKIs.

"Okay…" Liara said. "Looking down was clearly a mistake."

They made their way along the catwalk, Ishtar leading through a squad of Broker Agents (their puny bullets were no match for her shield), and into an interior part of the ship, where rows of huge, electrically-charged panels moved in & out in waves.

"This ship is incredible" Liara said. "It must have taken decades to build in secret."

"I wonder what happened to the contractors" Shepard snarked.

"I think we can guess. …Navigating this storm is brutal. If the ship's engines stop for even a moment… At least the Shadow Broker would go down with us."

"That's comforting."

They made their way back outside, along the catwalk and back up onto the ship's back. Another pair of fortuitously-placed capacitors made clearing out the next squad of Broker Agents much easier, and another pack of LOKIs were easily dealt with as well. The next, squad, however, had good cover, a rocket launcher, was led by a Vanguard, and was not near any capacitors. Shepard used his Viper to snipe the launcher-wielder, while Liara tossed out a Singularity that snatched up three foot-soldiers who were then taken out by Ishtar's blaster cannon. Shepard used a Biotic Charge to stun the Vanguard and then used his SMG to take her down, while Liara dealt with the rest.

Once the way was clear, they moved up a ways, lowering a section of panels to progress further down the ship's spine. Another, larger pack of Agents came out to meet them, but their proximity to capacitors eased Team Shepard's progress as they carved through them. Up ahead, a lightning rod on a rail was quickly lowered, exposing a path that led further down the ship, but included a trek across a thin metal bridge over a 'pit' of electrically-supercharged parts.

"Not even a guardrail" Shepard said. "I bet the Broker's agents _love_ patrolling the hull."

"At least the view is nice" Liara quipped.

They emerged right outside a locked hatch leading to the comm. signals. Liara ran up to it.

"It's locked" she said. "Hang on; I've got a bypass shunt program that can crack it."

She walked up to the door, calling up her Omnitool. A yellow circle appeared at the center of five red displays forming a larger circle around it.

"How long will it take?" Ishtar asked.

"I don't know. I've never broken into the Shadow Broker's base before. …Well, not this one, anyway."

Broker Agents attacked from the left.

"You sure that shunt is working?" Shepard asked as he triggered a capacitor discharge, frying a trio of Agents.

"It's illegal even on Illium" Liara replied as she Biotically launched a flailing & screaming Agent off the side of the ship. "It didn't come with a warranty."

"But you tested it, right?"

"Uh… Here come more of them!"

"Tell me you tested it!"

"Sorry, no time to talk!"

After another minute or so of this, the Agents started coming from the right instead, sporadic and poorly-organized but still an annoyance.

"Liara…" A LOKI mech exploded.

"I'm sure it won't be much longer!" A Warp to the face took out an Agent.

"Remember the old days when you could just slap Omnigel on everything?"

"Yes, that security upgrade made a lot of people unhappy."

Ishtar's blaster cannon blew the head off a Vanguard, while an Overload from Shepard left an Engineer exposed to a barrage of SMG fire to the face from Liara. Rocket drones came flying in from the front of the ship; Shepard used an Overload to take out two, while Liara grabbed three more with a Singularity, so a couple shots from Ishtar's blaster cannon scrapped them easily.

"Their attacks are disorganized" Liara said. "They'd be more effective if they all attacked at once."

"Please don't give the mercs ideas" Shepard replied.

Another small wave of Agents attacked from the left, with Team Shepard making short work of them. However, their long-range motion trackers then lit up on both approaching directions.

"The next wave looks like a big one" Liara said.

"You just _had_ to give them tactical advice" Shepard quipped.

"But now there'll be fewer left to deal with inside."

"Keep dreaming, T'Soni."

Shepard took the right while Liara and Ishtar took the left; they got into position just as Broker Agents came storming in from both sides. Shepard tossed out a Singularity that grabbed three of them, and moved them high up enough for the gale-force winds to grab hold of them and whisk them away. Ishtar relied on her massive metal shield and her armor's personal energy shields to protect her as she rushed in close amongst the Agents, using her blaster cannon to blow holes in chests and heads. Liara hung back, using Biotic attacks to support Ishtar and keep attackers off-balance.

Eventually, the horde dwindled to nothing, and seconds later the door finally opened. Cautious, the trio hurried inside.

-_Mini-Break_-

The team took cover as a rocket came streaking in from down the hallway, while bullets pinged off the support beams they were behind.

"More of them?" Liara asked. "How many guards does the Shadow Broker have?"

"I told you~…" Shepard said.

Shepard pulled out his Viper, using it to snipe most of the Agents down the hall. He then Biotic-Charged in, stunning the shielded Engineer, and followed up with an Overload/SMG combo that took him down as well. The other two caught up, and they hurried through the corridors, fighting through another pack of Agents along the way.

"_Hold your positions, no matter the cost_" the Shadow Broker's distorted voice ordered.

"I've downloaded the ship's layout" Liara said. "We're headed toward the prison block… and Feron."

Up another flight of stairs, a pair of Vanguards and an Engineer were guarding a doorway. Shepard Overloaded the Engineer's shields, leaving him open to a headshot from Liara's pistol, and then used a Throw and a close-range Sniper shot to kill one of the Vanguards while Ishtar bashed the other with her shield and then fired two point-blank blaster cannon shots. Shepard hacked the door, leading into a walkway that included a terminal overlooking a low-set room. In the center was a chair, and restrained in it was a Drell, hooked up to multiple machines.

"Feron!" Liara called out.

The Drell stirred, weak. "Liara?" he rasped out.

"Hang on," Liara ran for the control panel, "we're getting you out of here!"

"No, wait!"

Too late. As soon as Liara tried to access the terminal, Feron screamed, his body twitching as electricity coursed around, over, and through him. After a second or so, it cut off.

"What the hell is the Broker trying to do to you?" Shepard asked.

"The equipment is sensitive to tampering" Feron replied, sounding a little strained. "This chair plugs into the Broker's info network. You have to shut off the power; pull me out now, and my brain gets cooked."

"Do you know where we can cut the power?" Liara asked.

"It won't be easy. You'll have to go to central operations."

"What do you know about the Shadow Broker?" Shepard asked. "What is he?"

"I never got a good look, but he's big. The guards are terrified of him."

"A Krogan?" Liara asked.

"No. Bigger."

"What's the point of this cage?" Shepard asked.

"It's a neural grounding rod" Liara replied. "The medical equipment is to make sure he doesn't… expire. Getting him out of it won't be easy."

"Easy or not, we're _all_ getting out of here."

"Central operations is down the hall" Feron said. "You know the Shadow Broker's waiting for you, right?"

"I'm counting on it. We'll be back for you."

"I'll try not to go anywhere."

Team Shepard moved on, carving through a couple more Broker Agent squads. Finally, they reached the door to central ops, stepping through and entering the Shadow Broker's office. At the far end of the central area of the room was a desk, partially in shadow. Seated at it was a massive being with a crimson hide; even sitting down, Shepard could tell he was as tall as a Sangheili and twice as bulky. His impeccably-pressed suit looked tight on his heavily muscled frame, two curved 'horns' vaguely resembling a Salarian's crowned his head, and he appeared to have eight eyes and a three-jawed mouth (two upper, one lower). He sat calmly, hands folded on the desk.

"Here for the Drell?" he asked, with a natural voice that was somehow even deeper than the modulated one he used to issue orders. "Reckless, even for you, Commander."

"That bombing on Illium wasn't exactly subtle" Shepard replied.

"Extreme, but necessary."

"No, it wasn't!" Liara said. "Neither was caging Feron for two years!"

"Dr. T'Soni. Your interference caused all this. Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard's body. The Drell is simply paying the price."

"Someone was bound to come after you for working with the Collectors" Shepard said.

"It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Fortunately, the _Normandy_'s IFF will let me salvage the remains of the Collector Base."

"It'll be pretty hard to run a base this size with no crew."

"They're replaceable. Your arrival is barely an interruption. Enough talk. My operations are too crucial to be compromised by a traitor."

"You're quite confident for someone with nowhere left to hide" Liara replied.

"You travel with fascinating companions, Doctor. Cerberus will pay me handsomely for the chance to dissect a new member of the _Homo_ genus; they'll certainly consider Ms. Solos' 'contributions' worth any price I ask for."

"You're not laying a hand on anyone!"

"It's pointless to challenge me, Asari. I know your every secret, while you fumble in the dark."

"Is that right? …You're a Yahg, a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to their homeworld for massacring the Citadel Council's first-contact teams because they're tribalist pack-hunters who consider the concept of 'equality' to be disgustingly insulting. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker 60 years ago, and then took over. I'm guessing you were taken from your world by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave… or a _pet_. How am I doing?"

The Shadow Broker slowly, quietly stood up to his full height, his body trembling lightly with barely-suppressed fury. Then, with surprising speed, he slammed his fist down on his desk, breaking it in two, and then picked up & tossed one half at Ishtar, who barely got her shield up in time, being shoved back by the impact. The Broker stepped forward, his footsteps shaking the ground, and roared as he pulled out a Revenant heavy machinegun, wielding it one-handed with ease.

Heavy fire forced the trio into cover, as the Shadow Broker slowly stalked toward them. His energy shield was strong enough that an Overload from Shepard only drained it by half, and Revenant fire forced Shepard back into cover. Several shots from Ishtar's blaster cannon and Liara's SMG took them down the rest of the way, but the Broker then took a crouching position as energy flowed down from the glowing bluish-white structure in the ceiling, a powerful kinetic barrier forming around him that easily deflected Team Shepard's shots. A Warp from Liara accomplished no better.

"The shield's kinetically sensitive!" Liara said. "Energy and projectiles are bouncing off!"

"Then we do this the hard way" Shepard replied as he rushed in, dealing a cyborg-strength punch to the Broker's face. Another blow sent the Broker staggering backward (and deactivated his Overshield, as he had to stay in place to keep that up), and Shepard charged, only for the Yahg to activate his newest invention: an "Omnishield" that formed from the Omnitool on his left arm. He swatted Shepard away with it, draining his shields, and would've killed him had Ishtar not moved in to block the Revenant shots with her own shield.

Ishtar charged shield-first at the Shadow Broker, her metal defense deflecting the bullets sent her way, and as she closed in she stored her cannon and drew one of her large swords. The blade of dense and very durable heat-resistant metal clanged against the Broker's Omnishield with enough force to stagger the Broker back a little. Then he stowed his HMG and, with his right arm's other Omnitool, formed a glowing curved blade (actually heated, nigh-invisible flash-fabricated matter 'highlighted' by holograms, like his shield) and charged her, Omniblade trying to slip around her shield and failing. The two engaged in a swords-and-shields duel, the Shadow Broker displaying surprising speed and dexterity for his muscular bulk, and the comparatively-small Elvaan showing her centuries of combat experience and more strength than her lithe frame would suggest.

A metal shield stopped an Omniblade stab at the heart. An Omnishield blocked a large metal blade's decapitating swing. Back and forth they went, neither holding the advantage for more than a few seconds at a time. Finally, Shepard and Liara started pitching in again, using their weapons and attacks to wear down the Broker's energy shield as he fought Ishtar. Finally they succeeded, and the Shadow Broker leapt back, another tendril of energy flowing down from the device built into the ceiling as his Overshield came online again… exactly where Liara wanted him.

Liara launched a Warp into the lens-like structure full of volatile energy, and then with effort she forced the containment to shatter. The energy flowed down and into the Shadow Broker, 'drenching' him and overloading his body. He was engulfed in a silvery glow, and then with a tremendous bang he exploded with great force; most of him simply ceased to be, a few tiny scraps of charred, burning biomatter fluttering to the ground like loose paper, breaking down into ashes as it did. Catching her breath, Liara walked over to the room's control panel.

In the torture cellar, the power flickered off. When it came back on a second later, the chair was empty.

At the central holo-display, an Operative called in to report the brief connection failure, asking for status. And then another called in. And another, and another, and two more, and four more, and so on. Liara looked overwhelmed for a moment, but then walked up to the display, calling up a holographic 'microphone'.

"This is the Shadow Broker" she said, her voice being broadcast to all listeners in the same deep, modulated tone they (thought they) knew so well. "The situation is under control. We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications momentarily." She paid little mind to Feron rushing in, gun drawn. "However, we are now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker out."

As one, the flashing red connection screens turned blue.

"Goddess of oceans…" Feron said as he limped in. "It's you. You… how?"

"Well…" Liara said. "Besides the four of us, everyone who's ever seen him in person is now dead, so…"

"…You're the new Shadow Broker."

"Is taking over as the Shadow Broker really a good idea?" Shepard asked.

"It was either that or lose everything" Liara replied. "His contacts, his trading sources… Those will really help us. With the Shadow Broker's information network, I can give you… I-I can…"

She choked up, as the adrenaline rush left her and it finally sank in what had just finally happened.

"I'll, uh… check the power systems" Feron said as he turned and left, Ishtar accompanying him.

"It's over…" Liara whispered, tears falling. "It's finally over… after two long, bloody years…"

[MISSING BITS; AUTHOR COULD NOT FIND YOUTUBE VID THAT DID NOT USE 'SHEPARD/LIARA ROMANCE' SCENES]

"Let's see what our options are" Liara said as she walked over to the terminal. "No safeguards or user restrictions. It's like he never anticipated anyone other than himself being here. And it's all ours."

"What kind of information do we have?" Shepard asked.

"I'm not sure; I'll need to go through his files. Come back later, and I'll try to have something useful for you. …All I wanted was to rescue Feron, but… is it wrong that part of me wants this? With the Shadow Broker's network, I can help you; maybe I can turn this operation into something better."

Shepard nodded. "Don't be a stranger this time."

"Small chance of that. Come back soon."

Shepard smiled, and then turned and walked away. Fighting the Reapers if… _when_ they came would be hard. But maybe now it would be a teensy bit easier.

**-**_**BOOK 18 END**_**-**

And that's it for Book 18. Stay on the lookout for Book 19 – Darkness from the Moon; it'll be in the 'Lyrical Nanoha / Transformers X-Over' section. It may be a while, though; I plan to watch DOTM again before I start work on B19, and it may be a few days before I have the free time to watch a 2+-hour movie. Oh, and in case anyone's curious, the events of "Arrival" will be an end-of-Book bonus chapter for Book 21.


End file.
